AIBU to wonder why retired parents live in big houses and don't help family?

[Dojos]

Not judging the choice but i can't help finding it odd that you can have two sets off grandparents living in and owning several properties and adult children both in full
Time work struggling to make ends meet.

Bright enough and big hearted enough to know inheritance is a gift not a right, and rightly so. I'm just curious how parents can sleep In 5 bedroom homes they don't need at night whilst their good steady grown up kids struggle a whole Gang into a 2 or 3 bed semi.

I guess that applies further - why do the elderly generation not downside and keep the lifecycle of a family home going?

nursy be careful what you wish for . A quick death from cancer should never be on your wish list.
My husband died 105 days after diagnosed in agony. Praying for the pain to stop for just a few seconds. Given so many opiates that there was nothing more he could be given but still the pain persisted.
Very rarely do you just float away on a cloud of morphine.

I realy don’t reconise the 70’s and 80’s that some on this thread seem to think. I was a child of the 60’s. My mum divorced around 1970 and the stigma to it ever present. No state help, no free or subsidies child care, no csa, no cheap shops or large supermarkets, no central heating, fitted carpets, double glazing or trips to ikea for cheap furniture.
Everything we had was a hand me down even knickers and socks. My school socks were held up with elastic bands and I would have great big red whilst around my legs by the end of the day.
No help from grandparents. Every year as I child my only pair of schoool shoes would be bought my my. Grandparents as my birthday present and they would have to last until my next birthday even if my feet grew. I still remember my grandad taking me to buy them each year in Croydon.
When I left school only around 10% of people went to uni. Most went straight into work. High unemployment so if you couldn’t find your own job you were placed on a yts scheme for £30 a week.
My parents generation had it harder. I have extended family that when there husband left them in the 50’s and took the children she never saw them again as she had no way of getting them back and no help.
Every generation has difffernt hurdles but I do think today’s generation has a somewhat rosey view of the ones before.

Cantspell.
Im so sorry to hear about your husband. Nobody should die like that nowadays. Dreadful!
Sorry if my earlier point brought that up. It was really to illustrate that under current legislation those who have the misfortune to get a long chronic illness at the end of their lives have an unfair financial penalty imparted to those whose demise is relatively quick.

Scarl, it just varies over the 60 years of adult life however. My parents might have had a relatively easier life than some in the 1980s for example because they had professional jobs and as you say there were some good years for baby boomers although they may be a bit old to be boomers but they had hard years too.If I am a boomer (if I am it is tail end) some of the times have been easier than others but I don't feel I've had some kind of easy ride and stuff handed on a plate. Having 2 weeks off to have a baby in was probably harder for me than when my mother had her babies - she stopped work or most work and my off spring as there are longer maternity leaves these days. Some things are easier and some worse. Eg many many old ;people only have the state pension and live in relative poverty - not eveyrone has private pensions. Some lost their pensions in the Maxwell or equitable life scandals, huge numbers of women who did not work have no pensions other than a bit of a state pension.

However I do accept that the benefits to OAPs seem a bit generous nowadays (not that I will get any of that until I am about 70 and even then I will continue working and my father worked almost until he died as did most of the family in the past actually).

My husband died 105 days after diagnosed in agony. Praying for the pain to stop for just a few seconds

why do we as a society, think this is OK, its so awful, would any of us right now want this death for ourselves?

Why cant we choose in fit and well health sound of mind, when we want to go! Saves pain, horror, fear, money our relatives watching us in pain?
why why why dont we have this legilsation in place?? its ghastly. Yes there are areas where it may be abused but terminal condition with x months to live is pretty clear. Dementia, lost ability to self care and recongise yourself and relatives iS PRETTY CLEAR.

Because its their home...

So sorry, Cantspell, that must have been dreadful for both of you. It does illustrate that whatever plans you might make, life can trash them.

The thing that's just occurred to me is that we continue to debate the rights and wrongs of passing money on but individual circumstances vary so much.

Two of my stepchildren are doing very well and are both in a far better position than I was at their age. My son and third stepchild not so well, how can we give money to the ones who could do with it and not the ones who don't need it? We couldn't.

I'm a bit taken aback that what seems to me to be sensible provision for the worst old age can throw at us is meeting with such disapproval. It's designed, not only to give us decent quality of life, but to put the least possible burden on our children. Is that so very wrong? If we don't need that care, they'll get the money anyway in the end.

You don’t know what is around the corner and we do need to ensure we have enough to provide for any care we might need.
Those lucky enough to get on the housing ladder are benefiting from historically low interest rates but this also means any money the older generation has put away is worth less and less in real spending money as the rate of interest is way below inflation.
My husband died at 59. He will never claim the pension he worked and paid for for 40 years. No widows pension anymore for me but I do get a percentage of his work pension but no where near what he would have got had he reached retirement age. What money I have I need as I could live another 40 years and as I get older my own earning capabilities diminish.
I don’t want to be a burden to my sons in my old age so I will hang on to the cash, use what I need and they will get anything left when I am gone.

My parents' money is for their old age.

As one of five siblings, we are lucky that we are all on the property ladder and don't need anything from our parents. We have sat down with our parents and "decided" that the bulk of my parents' estate will go to whichever of their children cares for them in their old age. One of us will be giving up work eventually to look after them (hopefully they will live to an old age) as we don't want them going into a care home. Whichever sibling makes that sacrifice deserves to inherit.

My dad lives in a four bed house, in London, alone, he doesn't want to move and why should he. Over the past few years he has had his grown kids and grandkids, on many occasions, living with him, rent free.

We KNOW there's a housing crisis, caused to pretty big extent by the combination of the right to buy policy, buy to let landlords' greed and government underinvestment in social housing creating a perfect storm. All the schemes purporting to make buying a house more accessible only help those who are in a position to buy anyway.

We need a complete review of housing policy, just like we need a complete review of the NHS but while we've got a government devoting all its time and resources to Brexit that isn't going to happen.

This, but all my ancestors coudl not own - we just had a brief period when some people could buy. if you go back to 1900 most people rented from private landlords. it is not that millennials have something really terrible today - they just have the norm of many people always in the UK.

However people are right that if fewer young people even when they inherit from parents never can buy a property then in older age they will have financial problems - don't assume the state will be able to step in to afford it however with increased housing benefits for OAPs' rents.

Have no issue at all with my lovely parents enjoying their large home ...it's theirs not mine and part of their investments for their old age. BUT what makes me extremely angry is people that own a big house and actively object and campaign against the construction of affordable housing schemes in their town. The same people often gripe that their grown up kids are still having to live with them!!
I have a house with a nice view but i recognise that one day my kids will need starter homes with affordable deposits so everyone can move on.

look after your family and they will look after you

Really? How does that work in the real world. Even with help most people have a mortgage and bills to pay. There’s no way I could have given up work to care for DM and kept a roof over me and DHs head.