My dad needs help, but he's stubborn and my mom's indifferent. How can I get them to take my dad's care seriously?

I'm an only child to a single Mom. She was a hard worker and saved as much as she could. She lives in the house next door to me (she's 95 and still mobile somewhat, independent, mild moderate dementia now). But she had "old school" concepts of caregiving: as in I will be taking care of her in her home -- which is ironic since she allowed her 2 older sisters to care for her Mom in their home and she had very little to do with it. I made it 100% clear that I won't be doing that, especially because I was also PoA for her 2 older, out-of-state sisters. I wrote it all down so she couldn't say I didn't tell her or she didn't remember. It was important that she remember it.

If your Mom is a spend-thrift... this is a problem. My experience with my nere-do-well SFIL was that he was penniless and in debt in his retirement years. This is after we and my other BIL took great pains to find him jobs, create budgets and show him that all he had to do was get a PT job and stay in it. He resented all of it. Ignored it. Even ignored it when we told him to not take out a 2nd mortgage in order to live on the cash value. Well, that mortgage ballooned and they lost the house to foreclosure (also didn't pay property taxes). The irony is that he had a Finance degree from a reputable university.

He assumed my husband and I were going to take care of him and my MIL. He wouldn't even assign a PoA. Not sure why, it' not like he had money to be scammed out of... One day I told him what happens to elders who become incapacitated and have no PoA: they become a ward of a court-appointed 3rd party legal guardian. Meaning, no family member then is making decisions for him or managing his affairs -- the guardian is a total stranger. He could avoid it if he assigned a PoA. I emphasized that even we had already assigned PoAs. Unfortunately he chose poorly and he became a ward of the county once his wife developed short-term memory loss and had to go into AL, and his Parkinsons got worse.

All this to say you need to have this very direct conversation with your parents. It needs to be informational and not emotional. They need to hear from your lips that you taking care of 2 people is mentally, physically and financially unsustainable. You can even show them some of the posts on this forum from frantic only children burning out trying to care for 2 unprepared and uncooperative parents.

You can suggest to them that their best move is to put the inheritance into a trust fund and make you the trustee. Even so, they probably won't believe it or do it, but at least you can have a clear conscience that you told them so they could make decisions.

Then it becomes you who needs to choose and defend your boundaries as they fall apart. When they complain about it you can then remind them that you told them exactly what your level of involvement would be and that this is the retirement plan that they freely chose.

I brought my in-laws the PoA forms multiple times and left them there for them to review and finalize. We spent hours thinking that if they just had the right info or enough info they would "see the light" and change. They chose to not do any of it. They resented us for sticking our noses in. So, never feel guilty about how it goes for your parents. You warned them and that's as much as anyone can do. They are full-grown adults with all their faculties. They chose it.

Love ya, welcome to the forum!

I think you need to make it clear to both of your parents that YOU are not your retirement plan. That they need to be smart about how they manage their resources to pay for old age care.

Find your dad the name of a highly qualified Elder Law attorney and ask if he'd like you to help get him there.

I’m sorry you have two parents with a history of poor decision making, and choosing to remain in a relationship filled with resentment. Know their dynamic and patterns are unlikely to ever change. Know also this doesn’t obligate you to provide for them, disrupt your life and wellbeing to do for them what they should have done for themselves. I agree with others advising you to have an honest, blunt conversation to make this very clear to them. I wish you peace

Leave them alone and wait for “THE BIG EVENT” that will put him in care. It doesn’t matter if they think you will use up your golden years and retirement to care of them and bail them out. The answer is No and “NO” is a complete sentence.

Might I suggest therapy? It sounds like you need some boundaries. (I say this with love)

Of COURSE they are shutting down the conversation.
They don't want to hear it.
They want to be able to say you never told them.
Sorry, you don't have the option to ALLOW them to stop your having this hard talk with them.
It's way past time.

I agree with a few others here who have indicated that you must now stand up for yourself, make decisions, and LET YOUR PARENT KNOW IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS the decisions you have made for YOUR LIFE.
Then know that's it. You can't make decisions for theirs.
You have excellent advice below.
Barb's "you are not their retirement plan" says it all.
Bulldog's advice to leave them be and await "the call" is also spot on. But the leaving it be is crucial to that equation.

Were Beatty writing on the Forum right now she would tell you that there will "be no solutions as long as YOU are all the solutions". If you allow this to go on then you will be AT FAULT for allowing your parents to assume you are the answer to everything. If you do not force them to face YOUR truth, then to will have enabled their poor decisions, and prevented their choice to make good ones.

So it's the New Year. Good. Here's the steps.
1. Get things clear in your own mind. Your parents have it clear in THEIRS. They have seen this disease at work and they KNOW where it is going. They have decided to make bad decisions, and to plan on being dependent on YOU. THEY HAVE TOLD YOU THIS and you have NOT corrected them in no uncertain terms. That cannot stand.
NOW is the time to tell the TRUTH. Call. Tell them you need to speak to them. And then DO IT.

2. Now for the speaking to them.
You will need to say "I know, Mom and Dad that you know where Dad's disease will take you. It is time now for YOU to get a plan together for the stairsteps.
I will NOW be stepping back now. I do not INTEND to be caregiver here, and the more I do now the more dependent I will cause you to be.
If I must move 1,000 miles away for my own and your good I will do that. But I am not taking on caregiving.

3. Consider that, about moving. You may need to. Consider also expanding your life to two jobs, to other things. You may need to make yourself so busy that you CANNOT help them. Otherwise you will be tempted to enable them now, and that will continue like the frog boiling in water slow. As I always say, don't jump on the funeral pyre of your parents; it's often a slow burn. (That frog thing is a myth, by the way).

This has been on the horizon from the beginning. This was a given. A known.
And they have decided to just let it happen--to depend on you when they have to.
You are an adult now with adult choices and none of them are easy.
Not taking on their care will hurt you deeply as they struggle. Taking on their care well may kill you.
And the choice is all yours.
I am so very sorry. Truly. For you all. This is a crucible any way it is looked at, and you all have past evidence to know that.

I am very happy for this

You seem to have a clear grasp of the situation. They are very lucky to have the financial resources to manage your dad’s sad prognosis with some degree of comfort yet choose to stick their heads in the sand. I find this horrifying. My only child is 29 and I would never allow him to become “the solution” or “the fallback plan” or anything remotely like that. No matter how distasteful I found doctors or assisted living, etc, I could never let any part of this kind of planning or care slide onto him.

Good luck in establishing the necessary boundaries. Do not feel guilty. You did not cause or choose any of this. You can and should love them without diving overboard in a misguided sense of trying to save them when they aren’t making any effort to save themselves.

You need to sit down and have a talk with your parents. They need Wills. Without them the State steps in and determines who inherits. They need POAs in place. Without them the State could eventually take over their care. Dad needs to file for Social Security disability. They both need to know that you are not their solution. That inheritance is your Dads not Moms. It should be put aside and used for any care he may need. You will not be supplying any financial help. You have a life and maybe a family of your own. Your family comes first. Mom is responsible for Dad. You be firm that his care is their responsiblity.

My DH had to retire at 62 because his job shut down. At that time he received 1500. Thats 18k a year. Thats 18k or more your parents could be putting away. He would get Medicare, maybe even Medicaid. He can wait and get SS at 62. I think 75% of what he would get if he waited until 67 which is 100%. You Dad may not survive till 67. So better he get his SS now.

LoveyaDad: Your parents could engage the social worker in THEIR town's Council on Aging. It is THEIR dilemma, not your's. It isn't your responsibility to prop them up.

LoveyaDad, welcome to the forum. When it comes to finances, and if there is someone in the household that loves to shop until they drop, there isn't much you can do, no matter what age is that person.



My hubby has a daughter who is 50, and her daughter who's in college, both like to spend, spend, spend. We try to talk finance sense into them, but it just goes in one ear out the other. Best not to say anything more, and let them deal with the outcome THEY created. Don't bale them out.


When it comes to parents listening to us, nope we are still kids and what do we know... (sigh).

Tell Mom she is wasting the money she will need to live on after Dad dies.