To think families are going to have to look after their own old people?

[ElderAve]

It's not a judgement, the idea fills me with dread but how else are we supposed to pay for it? In a world where:

• It's political suicide to suggest that people who have valuable homes, they are no longer living in should use that value to pay for care.
• Everyone should be paid a proper living wage.
• We have increasing numbers of people needing care.

For example, between DH and I we have 4 elderly parents, still very much fit and well, but realistically, that can't carry on forever. Those parents have 4 working offspring.

I don't know how many residents a care home worker can care for but let's say it's 12, which to provide 24hr care means 3 shifts, so the equivalent of 1 full person to care for our 4 parents. That means that the state needs to raise tax equivalent to 1 (living wage) salary from the four of us and that's before paying for schools, hospitals etc.

Obviously not everyone has elderly parents needing care but those will often be heavy users of the schools system and we still need to pay for all the other services.

I just can't see how the state can do it, if they keep promising not to take the elderly's homes, which is so emotive.

yes justasking. Caring for my mum started with the daily visits, the shopping, the trips to GP or hospital. Then of course the multiple ambulance calls when she fell over again, the liaison with carers, organising the carers, taking over her bills for her, the endless admin. And then having to be the one to pick her up off the floor, make her a cup of tea, listen to her talk about suicide, it was endless, and that's before we got to the terrible 5 months of her life.

Add in a 60 mile drive each way - I honestly dont think I can do it for PIL.

last terrible 5 months that should say.

@Reginabambina Fuck off with your slating of less responsible generations. I have been frugal all my life - I don't shop to drop the way the current generation do, neither do I have to have the lastest mobile or the biggest house or the flashiest car.

@yolofish, perhaps it's worth having that conversation with everyone in the family now, so that:

A) you can put preventative measures in place when needed (e.g. a pendent alarm, grab rails and knowing where the important documents are)
B) when the the shit does hit the fan, you are not left picking up the pieces as a default.

It's not predictable, but you can plan ahead.

It's political suicide to suggest that people who have valuable homes, they are no longer living in should use that value to pay for care

I thinkthat's going to have to change.

I find it infuriating and frankly outrageous that these arguments still chunter on about "I need to leave the family home to my children" as if it's some aristocratic estate. Why should other tax payers pay for adult children to cling on to their "inheritance" ?

If you can't live in a home because you need to live somewhere else, you sell it to fund your move elsewhere. Unless you can afford to keep 2 houses, one empty.

Why this changes when the move is not for a new job, but is for going into sheltered accommodation or a care home, I do not know - or rather, I know that it's a ghastly sentimental masking of sheer greed.

"Make someone else pay for the care of my father/mother because I want to keep their house." It's not your family home if you personally haven't lived in it for years ...

For those saying about going to dignitas and the issues around this with dementia etc, we are really trying to encourage our patients to fill in a forward looking care plan which basically is a record of all your wishes, so where you want to be cared for, so you want to go to hospital if things get bad, what treatment do you want or do you want treatment at all, do you want resuscitated etc. I think these could be really useful in the years to come for those who don’t want treatment for things that would have naturally killed people years ago or people who don’t want artificially kept alive

But the cost of living and housing was way less back then, families could live on 1 working class salary. Not so much the case nowadays.

We seem to be managing it ok, like many others. This needing two incomes isn't the case, mostly it's wanting to incomes for the lifestyle you choose. That's hardly the same.
There's nothing wrong with this, most people want to live well nd put themselves first, this is what's changed.

Devlesko
Sounds a dreadful way to live. I'd selfishly rather have my luxuries of a career and a few holidays. And not financially struggle. And why the hell not? Why should one or two ailing people drag everyone else down and impact their lives. Who wants to perpetuate that misery and burden through the generations? And for many, usually women, that's exactly what it is. They've just been conditioned to suck it up, it doesn't make it right.
Not what I want for my DC. 'Duty' is a misplaced term for manipulation and emotional blackmail.

This needing two incomes isn't the case, mostly it's wanting to incomes for the lifestyle you choose.

Well yes, if you have fairly well paid jobs and no kids and a small flat like I do, it's more than easy. If your job/career pays 20k and you have 2 kids and a non-working partner, good luck trying to buy a house.

There's nothing wrong with this, most people want to live well nd put themselves first, this is what's changed.

Why would anyone not want to live well? I can't get my head round someone thinking 'do you know what I want out of life? To live in terror of running out of money, and for my kids to struggle because we can't adequately provide for them'

I simply don't believe that there has ever been a time in history where people have actively wanted their lives to be more difficult. With the possible exception of religious cults who believe that this life must equate to suffering in order to have a better afterlife.

Why should other tax payers pay for adult children to cling on to their "inheritance"? Why should one section of society have to pay the care required because of their medical condition when everyone else gets it free? Why should should people with one diagnosis be unable to leave money to their children when people with a different diagnosis not only get their medical needs paid for but also all their living costs? Why should people with one diagnosis be expected not only to pay for their own care and medical needs but also subsidise the care costs and medical needs of others? That's the current situation.

If you can't live in a home because you need to live somewhere else, you sell it to fund your move elsewhere. Yes, you do. But you usually continue to spend on living costs much what you've spent so far. You don't suddenly find that your weekly living costs have gone from say £200 to £1000 or more.

In previous generations, families looked after their elderly. In many other countries, families look after their elderly.

People are living longer, and 'Senior Care' (as they call it in the U.S) is horrendously expensive.

I have no family. I'm going to take a Pill (or 12) when I become decrepit.

If we rebrand dementia as “brain cancer” will they start funding it?

Each situation different. Our dad had shocking health 10 years plus. Took a massive toll. Helped mam yes but he was in hospital alot. In the end we were all a wreck. I laugh at oh of course I mind my parents people dont realise its 24/7

We seem to be managing it ok, like many others. This needing two incomes isn't the case, mostly it's wanting to incomes for the lifestyle you choose.

Speak for yourself. For lots us sheeple it's needed to survive, especially if people also have children to provide for.

We don't agree with childcare either, preferring to leave children with grannies, aunts and uncles.

That's great, if you have family nearby who are both willing and able to provide childcare. Lots of people don't.

Mum wouldn't have worked, she took care of the family until dad came home.

Why should these things always fall to the women? What if she wants a career?

In previous generations, families looked after their elderly. In many other countries, families look after their elderly.

No, women's lives were usually made even more miserable by having to provide physical care for relatives on top of everything else. And far fewer people lived to develop dementia that took decades to kill them whilst they grew progressively worse.

This needing two incomes isn't the case, mostly it's wanting to incomes for the lifestyle you choose.

God, yes, silly people, wanting a lifestyle of eating regularly, having stable shelter and putting shoes on their children's feet. They're just want to have it all these days!

And those women, getting ideas above their stations as carers, fancying earning their own money, becoming educated and having careers, when it is their God-given directive to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. How are de menz supposed to eat? Or wipe their own arses? Next thing you know those uppity females will be wanting their own pensions and the ability to vote!

Mum wouldn't have worked, she took care of the family until dad came home.

This isn't true, mothers have always worked. Some stay home but just as many do not. In the 1970s over 25 million mothers were in some form of employment.

It is only relatively recently that it has not taken a lot of work to run a home. Not just cleaning, but making clothes, making soap, preserving fruit and vegetables, and cooking. I have old cookbooks and recipes often start with things like - catch a rabbit, kill it and skin it. No popping down to the supermarket for a chicken already plucked with organs removed, ready to cook. Most people will also have grown a lot of their own food, and this was common even in my grandparents and great grandparents era. My MIL who is 92, grew lots of vegetables for the family when young.

This needing two incomes isn't the case, mostly it's wanting to incomes for the lifestyle you choose

You have got to be joking, right?

Whilst I’m fortunate enough not to need to work (DH has a very good income), I choose to because I don’t want to end up out of work for a significant period of time, putting my career on hold, and then struggle to find employment to support myself and our children should I become divorced or, god forbid, anything happened to my husband.

The security and well-being of my children come first. And yes, that includes not moving them schools and miles away from the only home they’ve ever known.

There is no way in hell me or my husband would help look after his parents. We're no contact with them as they're vile people

who would want to live in a backward society where women are expected to have no ambition or career because they always have to be on hand to care for other family members, where you can never leave the clan, never progress in life.
I want to live in a modern progressive culture with a modern progressive government, not some backward patriarchal honour culture

develesko would you mind saying what community you come from?

(And you know I know because we got on very well on a previous thread - but it's a completely different situation).

This needing two incomes isn't the case, mostly it's wanting to incomes for the lifestyle you choose

You cannot be serious. Two incomes can mean the difference between eating and paying bills or not.