POLL: The Ideal Way to Care for the Elderly

[Grace]

In any event, I don't think there is one ideal way. Every family's circumstances are different.

That I agree with.

[steve-in-kville]

I thought about this from another angle... do I really want to be a burden on my children?

[mike]

I thought about this from another angle... do I really want to be a burden on my children?

Parents' wishes matter. And not all them want to live with their children even if they have the opportunity. But there isn't always a choice... care can be really expensive...

[Josh]

Nursing homes cost $9000/mo. I’m curious how people pay for this.

[mike]

Nursing homes cost $9000/mo. I’m curious how people pay for this.

Long term care insurance. Retirement savings. Significant personal assets. Not sure if Medicare/Medicaid help out.

I think that the cost is one factor in why many plain people care for elderly in their own homes or the homes of their children. They don't tend to lay by a lot of money or have insurance for long term care anyway. In addition to being an ideal way to care for the elderly, it just makes good financial sense in a lot of cases.

[Joy]

I thought about this from another angle... do I really want to be a burden on my children?

Do your children want things to go well with them, and to live long? Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Eph 6:2,3

Little children are a burden on their parents, if you want to look at it that cynically. But love makes it not a burden. So it should be with elderly parents.

[Ken]

Nursing homes cost $9000/mo. I’m curious how people pay for this.

Depending on which figure you want to use, the average length of an end-of-life nursing home stay is between 5 and 13 months. So that would be between $45,000 and $120,000. People burn through their retirement savings and then go on Medicaid. Or they use LTC insurance if they have it.

Remember if you are in a nursing home you don't really have any other living expenses. So no rent/mortgage, no utilities, no car expenses, no food. That is all covered. So the true cost of a nursing home is really the marginal increase over whatever monthly expenses and spending the person was doing before entering the nursing home. Most elderly retired people aren't blowing through $9k/month or $108k/year but they aren't spending nothing either.

[Ken]

I thought about this from another angle... do I really want to be a burden on my children?

I don't. And my wife and I are planning so that we aren't a burden on our children.

My own philosophy is that while we have obligations towards all of our family, they are not equal obligations. Our primary obligation is forward towards our children who are dependent on us, not backwards towards our parents, who are adults and have had their entire lives to plan and prepare for old age.

That does not mean we won't care for our elderly parents. Of course we will. But it means that we will not sacrifice our children's future for the convenience of our parents. In our case, my wife's parents might prefer for her to move down to Chile to take care of them in their old age. But our kids live here and go to school here and our careers are here. And so we simply aren't going to completely upset their lives to take them to Chile, and sacrifice our economic future to quit our careers and move to Chile where employment prospects are less in order to take care of her parents personally when they can very well make do with professional home health care in Chile or come up here and live with us if they prefer.

[Neto]

The ideal method to care for the elderly, is the way the Amish do it. They have a “dawdy haus” attached to one of their children’s houses. This way their grown children can check on them, care for them, make sure they have adequate food etc. And if other grown children live close by, they can chip in and help as well. Caring for the elderly becomes a family affair, where the older children in a family can give assistance to their elderly grandparents. This is good for the elderly grandparents emotionally and teaches valuable lessons for growing children.

However this model doesn’t work for many in our Mennonite culture. First of all, the families have become smaller and caring for the elderly can cause burn out when it is just a very few caring for the parents. In our circles there has been an overwhelming push for missions, with more families not living close to the parents. Also children may move out of the area the elderly parents live, for other reasons.

When the care of an elderly parent becomes impossible to do, because there are very few to shoulder the care, it leaves no other option than to have them live in a home, where they can be adequately cared for.

This might be off topic. Over the years I have seen missionaries work in foreign countries, proclaiming they are working for the Lord, (which they are), while their elderly parents could use help at home. I often wondered if that is in violation of Mark 7:11 (NLT) where Jesus was talking to the Pharisees.

“ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’

I thought of that verse as well. (There was a man in my community back in Oklahoma - not a Mennonite - whose given name was Corban. Always think of him when I read this verse, even though I don't use the KJV any more.) Anyway, that is part of the reason my wife & I returned from mission work. (Her parents, and also our children's education.) Her mom was actually bed-ridden with a back injury when we moved back. (She got better later, but it sure helped confirm our decision to return.)