Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
Both my wife and I "did our duty" and took care of our parents in their final years--a lot of work and constant emotional stress. We've said to ourselves that we'd never want --or expect--our children to care for us that way. So our answer to the question you posed is NEVER. There are plenty of options for care, even fully assisted living, here in TV. When "our time" comes, that's what we're planning on.
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Ok, I am not so tired now and have had time to reflect a bit. I feel absolutely no necessity to defend or explain our decision in any way, but as one who enjoys good conversation - here goes.
I think I can identify a little bit with what you are saying but in a slightly different area. I think that none of us wish to burden our children with whatever we felt burdened with with regard to our parents. In my case it was the accumulation of "stuff". When my mother died, I inherited the house that my sister and I grew up in. As it had been our family home for 55 years, it was indeed full. Now you might think, just take out a few important or nice things and get rid of the rest, but that was really not possible. Our parents loved to travel and our mother loved to shop plus she had excellent taste. The house was filled with beautiful family antiques, silver, oriental rugs, etc purchased along the way during their many travels. Plus they never threw anything way except obvious trash. It was a beautiful home filled with family treasures. Without going into details, it took me and my sister 10 years - yes 10 years - to sort through everything to either use ourselves in our homes or pass things on to our children. While it is wonderful to visit our children and see the beautiful things that I grew up with, I have vowed to my children that I will never burden them by leaving such a lifetime accumulation of things in one house.
So - back to the topic at hand - yes we are moving to be close to one of our children. Never for one minute did I think of this as a move so that our children could be more able to take care of us. It is a move toward warmth, love, smiling beautiful grandchildren and peace. Being the fiercely independent person that I am, I really do not want anyone taking care of me. I can take care of myself just fine. It is my husband who cannot take care of himself, so I am taking care of two people. The continuing care community where we will live has various living options. We will be living in the independent living area. I have arranged for caregivers to come in to care for my husband - notice, I said caregivers - not our children. The difference is grandchildren can also come over as can our daughter, her husband, their in-laws (whom we know quite well), plus we will be more centrally located for the rest of our 6 children and their families.
I remain solid and peaceful about this decision. We must all make the best choices possible for ourselves being guided by what just plain feels right and that is what I have done.