Success stories when you live with your adult child

[Bathingforest]

I might need to live with an adult child. I need the stories of you who do it, enjoy it and your other offspring don't patronise you or telling you how to live

How have you prepared for when you might die or need health care as an elderly woman

Hi op

what’s your situation? are you talking about moving in with a son / daughter? Do they have a family?

There are so many variables. How much care you need now / in the future, what the financial situation is, what expectations your child (and their family) have, what the set up would be (separate granny flat or living in the main house? Eating independently or joining them for meals?)

I’m still at the stage where our adult DC are living with us.

Some practical things you might need to consider though is who has POA? Will your will be up to date and have you discussed what will happen if you do become ill and need care?

My DFriend had her DM live with her for the last stage of her life. She was lucky in that she had 2 lounges so that one could be converted into a bedroom. However there was only a narrow downstairs WC. Narrow ones are a struggle if you need aids in there or trying to go to the loo with a Carer. There also wasn’t a downstairs wetroom.

Have you considered moving to a Sheltered Plus village instead?

My grandmother lived with my aunt and uncle for many years. She had a completely separate annexe which certainly helped.

My MIL lives with us. We all get on 99% of the time. Any wobbles are dealt with.
she likes a busy house but also likes to have the option to retreat when she wants to.
we do things together and apart and have an online calendar so we all know what we’re up to.
it works well.

My case is a bit more complicated because I am foreign and came recently here to join one of my daughters, I pay them rent from my foreign pension which is not equal in size to the English pension. Her husband is English and insist I pay them more which I don't have. My second daughter's husband is born here but his parents are from Central Europe ( I am Balkan ) and he is more understanding of my case and what pensions are in other countries, so they invited me to join them and contribute what I can.

I need success stories, not financial advice. If my daughters married men from my country, they could be living with me and the situation would look different

With respect OP I think financial / practical advice is exactly what you need. Success stories are going to be completely dependent on the individual situation, and not necessarily similar to yours.

What size of house / family does your second daughter have? Is the layout such that you would have a private area or would you be sharing their kitchen / living room? What standard of living do you expect and can your daughter and her husband afford to subsidise you if your pension doesn’t stretch very far?

its unfortunate that things didn’t work out with your first daughter and her husband. Did you make an agreement with them before you moved here? Have they not lived up to what they agreed or was it not discussed properly before you moved to the UK?

What was agreed when you first moved over in terms of what your payments would cover and how you’d be living with your first daughter? Do you need care or just somewhere to live? Did they know the level of your pension and the value in this country?

I grew up with a grandparent living with us but in a separate annexe so they lived independently, did their own meals (apart from a family meal once a week), laundry and cleaning and paid all the costs associated with the annexe (council tax, utility bills, own phone line), food. They weren’t very mobile so needed lifts to the supermarket and medical appts. And gradually more help with cleaning but never got to the needing personal care stage.

I have to read a little bit more about how English people do it. In my country the young adult and their children would live with me and we all live together as we all live together as a family, I look after the children, buy bits and bobs, we all pool the money together. Seems my first son in law is not ok with this, but my second does not have problems with me living with them just like they would live, if they were with me in my house abroad. There is not official arrangement, my two daughters love me and according how they are raised, I am their responsibility in my older years. There are many of us here, living with the young adults without official finance, just family love and giving it all to the kids

I have tried asking other foreign grandmas in my exact situation how they split finances but seems, splitting finances is not exactly known in our cultures. Our parents put their pensions in the cupboard, everybody knew where they were but nobody took anything. They paid from it for everything needed to be paid in their lives. Times have change massively

Yes, my daughters are strong and loving women and have a will but there is no POA in my country. It is just life. You have your kids when you are old, if you get ill, they come and start sorting you out which we started doing, I came here. Whatever I have abroad, is automatically my children, I have a will.

I think it’s fair to say that the British way of doing things is quite different.

There is no obligation for adult children to care for or live with parents unless they choose to, and property / incomes / expenses are ‘owned’ individually, not collectively. This is reflected in many aspects of the legal / care system. While many adult children do get involved in their parents care, there is no obligation to do so - only a sense of personal responsibility, and that in itself is often seen as a negative thing if the child doesn’t want to live with their parent or care for their parent but feels obliged to. It works the other way too - there’s no obligation for older parents to provide childcare or housing to their children.

The British way is very individualistic, not collective, and multigenerational households are not that common at least in white British families. Some other cultures are much more collective in their approach, but tbh I think the average Brit would feel sorry for a man who gets ‘lumbered’ with his mother in law living with them.

do your daughters have friends from your culture living in the UK that they can talk to about this? Maybe that would help you all work out a compromise.

Is the problem that there is a mixture of cultures here? So the grandparent would house their daughter and her husband and children? So any sons would go and live in someone else’s house? What happens if there are multiple daughters?

I can imagine a son-in-law from a different culture might not want to live with his wife’s mother. I know my DH would hate it - we see her a few times a year and there’s no way I’d contemplate living with her.

So the set up with your second daughter would be that you live with them and give all your pension into the family pot (do your daughter and her husband have joint finances then?)

And in return they provide housing, food? clothes? transport? life admin? Cooking? Cleaning? Shopping? Personal care?

Do they have room in their house? Will your bedroom be the existing spare bedroom, or one of their children's rooms meaning they now need to share? Do they have space they can convert to an annex - who would cover the cost of that?

I think you should have a very frank conversation ahead of moving in, to make sure this doesn't fall apart in the future.

People from different cultures will have wildly different expectations on this. And people from different cultures who have lived in the UK for a time and have made British friends/been exposed to British opinions of looking after parents in old age, may have shifted in their expectations - ie this daughter and her husband may not be as open to this as you may expect from their upbringing.

What level of care do you expect them to provide with their own hands? What would be available to you from the state? What can you buy in?

It is transactional, but what chores are you able to remove from them now - cooking? Cleaning? Childcare? How do they benefit from the arrangement?

If you have property in your home country and no intentions to return, why not sell it now to help fund your old age here? You could give a small gift to both daughters, keep the majority of the capital to invest and use it as an additional income to supplement your pension.

If you're living in this country, why can't you get POA?

Can you live with your daughter with the understanding husband?

I'd rather starve than charge my mother rent. A contribution to bills yes but not rent, you're her mother ffs.

Yes, I'm moving soon there.

You still need to apply for your daughter's to have POA, because in this country it could be very difficult for your daughter and son in law in the future, if they don't have it.

What sort of VISA/residency permit do you have?