How has this changed how you will approach it?

[Orangesandlemons77]

Getting old, I mean. I see a lot of people hear struggling (me too) mainly with elderly parents in denial / who won't accept help / depend on their children etc

I've teenage children / young adults and menopausal. In a time of reflection about the future. dealing with my own elderly parents (divorced, dysfunctional, difficult) is making me think about the future.

So I just wondered if anyone had thought about this and if dealing with their own parents or in laws had had any impact on how they intend to plan for the future themselves?

The evidence says that cognitive empathy (the ability to 'put yourself in other's shoes') does, on average, decline with age. What I don't think anyone knows is whether this is a biological decline - that you become literally less capable of it, in the way children are - or whether it's lifestyle changes. I was astonished at how quickly retirement changed my parents, but I've also seen much younger people seem to similarly lose perspective in periods where they were a bit withdrawn from the world for whatever reason. I think I did myself when I was on mat leave - my world felt small and I think I did become self-centred and self-absorbed.

My parents downsized a few years ago, when my mum was first diagnosed with a life-limiting illness. She always said she didn’t want to be a burden and to put her in a home.
However, my father is now unwell and it’s suddenly become apparent how reliant she’s been on him and how much my mum has deteriorated recently. She seems completely oblivious to this as she now can’t be left alone for long and can’t manage to take her regular medication.
We are currently in the process of researching what extra help is available. My parents have plenty of money to fund it and my sibling and I would prefer they spent their money on making their old age comfortable rather than saving it for our inheritance. They have been resistant up until now but my father’s illness has made them realise they need a plan.
Having seen my father in law’s experience in a care home though, it really worries me what options are out there and also for my own future. He was in an expensive home and had 3 children advocating for him but the care he received was still unsatisfactory. I have no idea where to start with finding somewhere suitable for my parents and, when the time comes, for me.
My partner and I have a plan to put plenty of money aside to fund our care, but we have no children and I really do worry as to what will happen to us when we’re at that point.

I agree with having a good clear out. When a family friend lost her mum as a young adult, she ended up paying for a storage unit for her mum’s things as she didn’t feel able to get rid of them. If her mum had just left a few keepsakes (plus the essentials), then it surely would have been easier for her.

Personally, I’d be tempted to keep one or two payslips from the 70s though. They’re a tiny bit of social history.

I have learnt a bit about care homes recently. It was a surprise to learn that at some homes, the self-funded residents are charged extra and subsidise the residents funded by the local authority. This doesn’t seem entirely fair! It’s also been sobering to read that some care homes are apparently fussy about who they will accept, “get funny” if a self-funded resident runs out of money and switches to local authority funding and that sometimes, residents are evicted if the care home decides it can no longer meet their needs. I knew care homes were expensive, but I had no idea they were so complicated. On the plus side, I have discovered a few care homes which seem lovely, including ones with lots of activities on offer, beautiful gardens and resident animals. Anyway, it’s made me realise the importance of saving up, even if I would only be able to afford the “top-up fees” that might enable my relatives to have some choice of care home.

Care homes are almost entirely now private businesses so can pretty much do what they want in terms of what they offer or who they take. It's a bit like private nurseries vs using a school nursery. Except in the care sector the equivalent of the school nursery barely exists. And a lot of the bigger care home chains have been bought up so the emphasis is on profit for shareholders.

@EmotionalBlackmail good points. That said the nursing home our family opted for whilst part of a bigger chain feels very much like a family run one. Maybe because there is a Matron and Senior Nursing staff who are very proactive in ensuring the care team work well with residents on activities and making sure they are showered and dressed for breakfast etc it does feel like they are not just left in their rooms, as does seem to happen in others. Maybe we got lucky. In fairness to the emphasis on profit and this maybe a controversial point - we are treating people with medication so much that people who would have died without ’over treatment’ are surviving for a long time. It is Big Pharma pushing this so the savvy investors know that care/nursing facilities are a good bet for good consistent profit. There is nowhere for some elderly people to go. Hospitals are not the right setting unless they have an emergency. Family cannot manage so these facilities are vital.

My observation is that realistically, unless you die of a cardiac arrest or similar, no one is actually capable of living alone in the last part of their life.

even with carers coming in etc it’s just not possible. Mental capacity is actually usually the first thing to go and physical follows. This means even if you think you’ll be able to employ gardeners, cleaners, order taxis etc to deal with physical decline, the reality is you won’t actually have to mental capacity to organise and stay on top of it.

my grandmother thinks she is living independently in her own home. The reality is that my mum and her siblings order her food shop to be delivered, pay the gardener, sort out her bills and doctors appointments, etc etc. They deal with multiple calls a day from my DGM in a panic about one thing or another.

I think we all have to plan for a care home to be honest because the reality is anything else burdens the rest of the family in a huge way.

I don’t think we can anticipate how we will feel or react once we feel more helpless, frail, dependent etc.

Like people who make pronouncements about how they will parent before they have a child…

The thing I will not do to my children is retire to a far flung isolated coastal / rural area that lacks care infrastructure, decent public transport and an easily accessible hospital… miles from where they live or are likely to live.

How old is your DGM @Autumnal589? I know a couple of people living independently without carers (just a cleaner) aged 88/89. Maybe your DGM is older than that though.

DH and I are in our early 60s. We are nowhere near retirement yet and infact DH works easily 50+ hours a week.

However, we will downsize from our large 3 bed Victorian terrace with enormous garden, in around 5 years if all goes to plan. We've been here 21 years and so I am starting on the decluttering right now.

I fancy a 3 bed 2 bath flat with large balcony about 15 minutes away from where we currently live but still within London.

I hope when it comes to care I will have the capacity to remember the worry and arguments my mother put me through when she insisted she "could manage fine" in her late 80s to 90s.

@LindorDoubleChoc sensible choice and plan. Good luck it sounds really sensible.

I think we all have to plan for a care home to be honest because the reality is anything else burdens the rest of the family in a huge way.

100%. No one wants to think it will happen to them so we need to be realistic before the decline begins. No one likes the word burden because it’s emotionally charged but if you (as a child or an elderly relative) are reliant on others then strictly speaking you are a burden. There are levels of course, but I didn’t have children to create free carers for my old age.

This really resonates with me. She expends so much energy devoted to being angry and resentful, there isn't anything left to be my mother any more

For me it’s keeping fit and active as long as I can. My mother is 85 and can’t walk very far at all now, she’s unsteady on her feet, but she has never really exercised and I think it shows. Even when she was given chair exercises to strengthen her legs after a fall she didn’t do them. It means she’s now very restricted in what she can do and complains a lot about her lack of independence.

It prompted me to join a gym for strength training and take up yoga for mobility. I’m aware that other things can happen to us but we can at least try to keep mobile for as long as we can.

Also on the subject of health going to try and get treated for stuff and not put it off. Got benenden health care to cover small ops etc. have seen elderly parents not get treated and then struggle as time goes on

My DM is still only mid sixties but more like 82. Amazingly she said she thinks she would cope fine on her own but relies on my DF for everything. From finances, to putting petrol in the car etc. When she is out she needs assistance reading everything and yet she thinks she would be fine...it's a huge concern for me that she is like this at her age and that she is in such denial.

Parents and in laws all dead now. Last to go was my mother who did most of it right. She agreed to LPA after dad died, lived in a bungalow and kept fit and active until she couldn't. She died of heart failure, the root of which was a childhood illness.
She left very, very detailed instructions about her funeral.
What she didn't get right was the very end, she left it too late to move into the care home she had chosen.
Also decluttering.

DH is 75 and I am 66 though he is healthierthan me. We did LPA ten years ago once DC were 18. Each other and both DC named.
I am clearing out stuff as an ongoing project.
Financially we should be fine. We already have help with the garden, could install a downstairs bathroom or chair lift.
What we haven't done is move. I want to move to a small town instead of the village we live in but DH does not. We could get by with deliveries and taxis but for me it would be hard socially if I couldn't drive. If he goes first I will move.

Driving is a key thing you have to consider. If you have to give up your car, how will you get on?

I injured myself a few years ago and due to a cock up at the hospital needed to go back and get it sorted. DH couldn't take me that day so it cost me £25 in taxis each way. It wasn't a very good experience anyway but would have been much worse in my 80s.