Who is going to be there when I become too old to take care of me?

This is a very good discussion topic! I am concerned about this, too. While I have a husband and 3 children, you can never really know how you will be cared for when you are in your final years on this earth. I also have 2 older siblings who, I daresay, I don't think will be helping me out.

My brother lives with my elderly (86-yr old) Mom (aging in place at home) and while I'm frustrated that he doesn't "get it" about tuning in to my mother's needs (i.e. making sure she eats properly, keeping her company -- he generally "hides" in his room all day -- keeping an eye on her when she goes up and down the basement stairs, etc.), he will be devastated when she dies. He has NEVER lived alone; he has always lived with my parents (he's 64). Our father is deceased. We have never been really that close (my brother is 9 years older than me) and it irritates me that I'm always over there doing the "little things" our mother always wants done, when my brother actually LIVES THERE. He doesn't do these things when she asks (i.e. water the garden, put out her chochkies in the garden in the Spring, putting her Christmas decorations up/down, etc.) so she's stopped asking him because he basically tells her, "I'll do it later." I don't blame her. Therefore, when I go there to have a nice visit with our Mom, I end up doing a dozen things that should have already been done. I mean, Good Lord, he LIVES THERE -- JUST DO IT. The poor woman doesn't ask for much. Our sister, while she lives 1/4 mile away from my mother (closer than I do), rarely visits or calls her. It's beyond frustrating (hence, why I'm venting and on this forum).

For example, a couple of years ago, Mom asked my brother to bring out the hose reel from the back patio so SHE could water the front garden and he said his usual "I'll do it when I come back". He was going to play cards with his buddies for the evening. Well, needless to say, after he left, she went to the backyard and started dragging the hose reel from the rear of the house to the front and ended up tripping over it and falling flat on her FACE. Blood was everywhere! She managed to crawl, and I mean crawl, across the street to another elderly neighbor's house and they called my niece (NOTE: my sister has little to no contact with my mother but my sister lives with her daughter -- my niece) who came over immediately and took my mother to the ER. (I was out of town that weekend and ended up being informed about this incident via phone while I was 5 States away.) To say I was pissed is an understatement!!! Mom (and my niece & sister) ended up 8-10 hours in the ER and our Mom having stitches. UGH!! If my brother would have taken just 5 minutes to move the hose reel to the front of the house when she asked him before he left, NONE of this would have happened. Also, if my do nothing sister would visit our Mom once in a while, SHE could have done it, too. My mother has "given up" on asking her for anything, too. But I digress.

My point is -- that as the youngest in the family, I will most likely be caring for my brother in some fashion when the time comes as he never married and has no children. Now, I'm 56 years old and my husband is the same age. Although our children love us, I really don't expect them to "attend to us" when we are frail and elderly. Unfortunately, my generation, I think, are the last of the "true" caregivers and we remember our parents caring for THEIR parents. I feel young people these days are all into themselves (i.e. how many "selfies" can you take with your cell phone and post to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) Good Lord! The world is a different place than when we were growing up. In my family, we regularly visited our grandparents, spent time with them, and enjoyed doing it. Now, it's impossible to even get our kids to even CALL their grandparents let alone visit them. Although we didn't raise them that way, it is what it is. It's sad really.

I'm sorry, I digressed from the original question. My advice to you is to perhaps try to save as much money as possible and pay for long term care insurance (I know, it's unbelievably expensive). I don't have it and probably won't get it. Try to get as much arranged in advance as possible to anticipate your health and housing needs.

As someone else said, get out there and make friends, volunteer and network NOW. I have several close friends and we've discussed this exact situation. We know our kids probably aren't going to really be involved in our daily care, so we've made a pact to help each other and be there for each other.

As far as assisted suicide, as a Catholic, I've been taught that is against God's teaching, but it is not out of the realm of possibility should I be diagnosed with a terminal illness. It's truly a conundrum. That poor young girl with brain cancer who moved to Oregon to avail herself of assisted suicide drugs -- I don't blame her one bit. She mitigated her suffering and was of sound mind when she did it. Was her family heartbroken? I'm sure they were but she did what she had to do. Her life, her choice. While there are good and bad NH's out there, I don't particularly want to end up in one. My friend's Mom was put in one when she was 85 and was there for 8 years. She was in one of the "good" ones but it was truly heartbreaking when she wasted away in the end. Dying isn't pretty. My 89-year old mother-in-law keeps telling me, "You know, dying is hard. This sucks." She lives at home with my 83-year old father-in-law and is also "aging in place".

My 3 children (due to circumstances) probably will never have children of their own. I worry about who will care for THEM when they get old. Hopefully, they will care for each other (2 daughters live in our hometown; son lives out of State) when the times comes. My son is a medical student and will probably NEVER return to our hometown. While they were raised in a loving home, they are not particularly close with each other (lovey dovey, I like to say). They all have different personalities and totally different interests from each other. I wish it were different but if I dwell on the fact that THEY will be alone when they are elderly, my anxiety will drive me nuts.

Anyway, I probably haven't contributed to this discussion much so I apologize. I know when I moved in to our neighborhood 26 years ago, WE were the young family and I had VERY elderly neighbors on both sides of my house. I regularly checked in on them and made sure I had the contact information of their children should anything happen to them. I knew they felt better about that. They are gone now (deceased).

Now, WE are the older people in the neighborhood and the new younger families that move onto the street do not have the same sense of "responsibility" (if you will) to check in on the remaining elderly neighbors. Their world is their house and their own families. I just think the world is a colder place these days. Sigh.....

Kid: Also I forgot to mention Case Managers. You can hire one for a one time fee (currently $800?). They do just that, manage your case, whatever your wishes may be, they keep tabs on you or should. I may no doubt be depending on one in my future.

I too am in the same postion.My friends are always after me to stop my evil ways but this is my philosphy:
Live today like there's no tomorrow. Forget the diets and exercise
(unless you love them) eat, drink, smoke and be merry.Do whatever makes you happy within reason.
Eat chocolate, take chances,forget the flu shots and routine examinations by your doctor.
If you are lucky you'll die younger and quicker but happier.
If you linger just refuse medical assistance for any onslaught of disease as most diseases (in the elderly) are not cured nor do they extend the quality of life.
If you lose your mind to dementia or other no worries. You won't realize what's happening and the state will take you under their wing.
The truth is we live too long anyway.

Mom started her caregiving as a teen in the concentration camps in Germany during the war, caring for the younger children that were sick and dying around her. She resumed it back in the 50's and early 60's when she would check on the elderly women that lived on our street, take them places and appointments, shopping and errands. Since they were mostly "housewives and moms" back then, they'd get together for coffee at each other's homes while the kids were at school and husbands were at work, so they all knew each other, watched each other's kids grow up, and the ones that didn't move away over the years watched each other grow older. Mom is now the sole survivor - more than 60 years on the block, and she's cared for and watched all those other women taken out of their homes, either by choice to live in more appropriate settings or against their will because it wasn't safe or lying flat on a gurney with a sheet pulled up. There's no one left to look out for her from all those women, and the younger generation have careers or family of their own they're overwhelmed by already, so this "tradition" of the younger female "caregivers" taking care of the older women in the neighborhood as they grow older seems to be dying out, too. Mom's kids haven't been very good caregivers. Ironic that someone who spent her entire life caregiving would have that fate. There's your answer.