Parents spend their time when you're growing up teaching you about responsibility: personal responsibility, financial responsibility. How is it that so many then, are completely unprepared for their old age. It shouldn't come as a surprise - if you don't die, then you're going to get old. With age comes health issues etc. How many times have i read the sentence: taking care of aging parents. They call it the sandwich generation - the generation looking after children and aging parents.
My father was diagnosed with Parkinson's - not a disease that is going to improve over time. The same father who made sure we always had ID on us and who had to know where we were at all times in case of emergency. That very father had no plans for his Parkinson's diagnose. Unless you call a head in the sand a plan.
This is not an isolated issue. So many children are struggling to look after their parents. This involves a myriad of issues: dr appt, meals, personal care, etc. It can be a full time job. But what of the children's own full time job? They too need to make the most of their working years so they can afford their own retirement. It's not a matter of shirking their duties - but parents are a full time job in their old age. It's their responsiblity to plan for it ahead of time... not leaving a massive, emotional job for their children to take care of it because it's their duty.
After mom died, dad couldn't make decisions on his own. Well, he couldn't make them before that either, but she was able to make them on his behalf. Afterwards, he was alone... his disease had progressed too far. His future care should really have been discussed at time of diagnose or shortly thereafter, instead of sweeping the bomb under the mat and waiting for it it explode.
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