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Original poster

Childless women - who will look after you in old age?

357 replies

boatyface2 · 20/04/2018 16:06

If you are childless (by choice or not) or even if you have children, what's your view on this?

I've seen several threads from mums hating it and saying they wish they didn't have kids. Surely it's all good when you're young but who will look after you when you're old?

I wonder if that is why mums complain how much they hate it, yet go on to have a second and third child? And if old age wasn't a concern, why did you have children if you don't enjoy it?

OP posts:
SaltyPeanut · 20/04/2018 16:36

This reply has been deleted

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Pasdeprobleme · 20/04/2018 16:36

No don’t agree with you op that everyone hopes their kids will want to care for them.

Do you mean literally care for them when they lose their independence completely eg feed them, wash them, get them around, have them live with you?

DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 20/04/2018 16:37

I have loads of kids and I never considered wanting them to look after me in my old age. I won't be doing it for my parents (who never looked after me properly) but I do as much as I can for one of my husband's relatives, who has always done what they can for us, and despite being childless has many friends and heaps of visitors. I also cared for my MIL in her last days and did so willingly.
I'm kind of hoping that if I'm nice to them now, they will bring their kids to visit me, but I don't expect more than that.

Flutist · 20/04/2018 16:37

surely everyone with kids is hoping that their kids will WANT to look after them?
Nope. I don't want my DS to waste his life looking after me. When I'm in my 80s he'll be in his 40s and I hope he's enjoying his life in a nice place with his partner and family, not stuck here looking after me. I'd do myself in rather than be a burden on him.

VladmirsPoutine · 20/04/2018 16:37

Surely by not having kids you'll have amassed enough cash to see you well into your twilight years if you're sensible about financial planning?

Personally the thought of having to depend on anyone other than myself fills me with terror.

PinkBuffalo · 20/04/2018 16:37

I don't have kids but will not get old I don't think.
Anyone who thinks they'll just need looking after when elderly could be mistaken. My mum became severely disabled when I was 11, and I've had to wipe her bum ever since.
"Caring" for someone 24hrs a day, 365 days a year has destroyed me body & soul. I have no doubt my mum will outlive me. I will have no need to be looked after as I'm only early 30s at the moment.

Threewheeler1 · 20/04/2018 16:37

It won't get to that stage...if I'm not quick enough on my feet the cats will eat me. I've seen the way they look at me in the early morning hours...
Have also told kids I'm quite happy to be stuffed into a home whenever they feel like it, just make sure it's a nice one where they actually do things.
Anyway, the women in my family tend to chug along like impenetrable tanks till they suddenly conk, so I'm hoping I've got those genes.

EasterRobin · 20/04/2018 16:38

The average lifetime amount spent on raising a child is £0.5m per child.

If you save that amount instead of raising a couple of kids, you'll be fricking laughing your way to the retirement village.

SendintheArdwolves · 20/04/2018 16:39

I used to have a job which took me into a lot of old peoples' homes. It was terrifying and awful - I know everyone says "I'd rather die than end up in one of those places" but having seen it, I genuinely think that is the better option.

Anyway, I met dozens and dozens of ill, lonely, scared old people who saw nothing but the inside of the care home, never had any visitors and never went outside the (heavily secured) doors. Statistically (and from photos in rooms) almost all of them had children and it didn't make a blind bit of difference. They were lonely and scared and no one gave a shit.

Wasn't there a study recently that concluded that it was friends, not family, that determined how much at risk from isolation and loneliness and old person was?

Kids don't protect you, OP.

HeedMove · 20/04/2018 16:39

My almost 85 year old aunt has a cleaner, meals on wheels and a career she pays for. My nana walks her dog and runs her to appointments and my mum who is her niece helps.

There’s plenty of lonely elderly adults with kids. What a ridiculous notion.

SweetCharityBeginsAtHome · 20/04/2018 16:39

The answer to who looks after childless men, on average , is their wives.

Elementtree · 20/04/2018 16:39

I know everyone says they don't expect looking after by their kids, but come on surely everyone with kids is hoping that their kids will WANT to look after them?

I really don't. I hope that they want to spend time with the me. I hope they enjoy my company enough to knit me into their lives a little. But, no, I don't want them to care for me. It's an enormous bourdon. I'd much rather that paid for help does all the heavy lifting in that regard.

morningconstitutional2017 · 20/04/2018 16:39

I've not had children for all sorts of reasons but you can't expect them to care for you in old age as a right.

MIL had two sons - her eldest who she simply didn't get on with at all (think two bossy egotists in the same room = fireworks) and my dear late husband who was her favourite. Sadly, we lived over 200 miles away. When she got dementia she drove BIL to the edge of insanity and he had to put her in a home for both their sakes. I think he would've strangled her otherwise. For myself I just 'hope I die before I get old' as Roger Daltrey sang but life offers no guarantees.

EasterRobin · 20/04/2018 16:40

Also I'm probably going to die in my late sixties/early seventies. So that's a, erm, plus. Apart from being dead, that is.

Elementtree · 20/04/2018 16:40

Burden!

Threewheeler1 · 20/04/2018 16:41

PinkBuffalo
That sounds so bloody hard on you.
There just isn't enough (any) support for people like you who do such an amazing & selfless job.
Sending you Flowers

DontCallMeCharlotte · 20/04/2018 16:41

Actually my close colleague is dealing with this at the moment. The strain it puts on her and her family is hideous to witness. She has recently had to "give up" and put her aged parent into a home and is tying herself up in knots with the guilt.

But at least it means she does now have time to concentrate on her own children who are in their GCSE and A'Level year.

Ihavenofuckstogive · 20/04/2018 16:42

Fucking offensive question. Knew that though didn't you?

FranticallyPeaceful · 20/04/2018 16:43

Who needs kids when you can just have dogs and health insurance

Willow2017 · 20/04/2018 16:43

Dear god!
I had kids because i wanted them not as 'old age insurance' ffs.

Like my mum before me i do not expect my kids to give up thier lives to look after me when i am incapacitated. (I would have but sadly she died in hosp after an op so i never got the chance) she was always adamant i had my life and kids to look after and she would be happy to go into a care home and have visits (like my dad had to after the hospital fucked him over)

I want them to go out and live a great life whatever they chose not
feel guilty that they need to give up something for me. I didnt have them to be unpaid carers.

What a horrible reason to have kids😔

TheHodgeoftheHedge · 20/04/2018 16:43

OP
I know everyone says they don't expect looking after by their kids, but come on surely everyone with kids is hoping that their kids will WANT to look after them?

Having watched my mother care for her parents for years is soul destroying. I never want to put someone through that and my mother now lives in fear of becoming that burden for me.

Inthedeepdarkwinter · 20/04/2018 16:43

I don't think you can expect, in the sense of guarantee, that your children will look after you in your old age.

That said, I find some of the talk on these threads really quite trite and not very deep about such matters (said facing life-limiting illness in younger family members).

Dignitas, that oft touted remedy for old age on MN, is very expensive- it costs thousands to get there and kill yourself. Even if by some miracle (and I hope it is) people with terminal illnesses might be permitted to have physician assisted suicide in the UK, that's not what most older people do, nor indeed what their families want to happen if you look at how people actually behave when they get very ill.

I also notice that despite on MN everyone 'going in a home', many many people I know are cared for at least initially by some family members. Few people have the wealth or the common-sense to move into cared accommodation on the onset of illness, what they mostly do is try to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, which their families tend to support. It's only when the care needs truly kick in, which can be years or even a decade into older age/illness that homes tend to be presented as a solution. In my family, older people are cared for by their sons/daughters to a great extent, especially in that long period of decline before really needing extensive care.

Apparently, though, the Mumsnet generation are all going to voluntarily put themselves in a home aged 75 and if not, pop off to Dignitas...even though we know people do the exact opposite- cling to their own homes and cling to life unless they are really quite near the end.

TheHodgeoftheHedge · 20/04/2018 16:44

Oh and frankly. Do fuck off.

merrymouse · 20/04/2018 16:44

I think this is a very ill thought out thread. Plenty of people have children who will not be able to look after them in old age. Plenty of parents survive their children. Nobody knows what will happen in the future.

ChickPeaSoup · 20/04/2018 16:44

Child-free by choice.

When I'm about 80, I'm going to find myself a hunky, chisel-jawed Italian nymphomaniac toyboy with rippling abs and an arse like two eggs in a tissue. I expect he'll be the one to look after me. He doesn't know it yet. He hasn't even been born Wink

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