This Liz Pulliam Weston article broaches the subject of giving tough love to friends and family who are being stupid with their money. Not surprisingly, family members don't tend to take the advice in the spirit in which it was given. “Buzz off” is usually the response, plus or minus some colorful expletives.
There isn't much difference in how adult children, siblings, and parents are treated. Basically, in all cases, the advice is similar: enlist the help of a disinterested third party, approach the situation gently, and protect yourself.
I was going to disagree with applying this kind of treatment to one's parents. The reason the children are now adults is because the very parents that they're giving what-for sacrificed for 15 years, 20 years, or longer to support them. Telling one's parents that the new house won't have enough room for them to live in — even if they say that there will be nothing left when they pass on — struck me as being more than a little unappreciative.
It turns out that the children may not even have a choice.
While researching the history of how families used to care for elderly parents, I also ran across information on filial responsibility legislation. In a nutshell: adult children of indigent elderly people can be made to reimburse state-run programs or institutions for costs related to their care. Not willing to take your elderly parents in because they can't afford to take care of themselves? That's fine, but you'll still have to pay, if you're in one of the thirty states (as of 2005) that had such legislation.
From the NCPA link above:
The duty to care for parents is a purely statutorily created duty that does not exist in common law. Until statutes imposed the legal duty, supporting poor family members was considered a moral duty. The moral duty receded as society evolved, family life changed, and government created a variety of federal and state programs to meet the needs of the poor.
Basically, things were running nicely until the government stepped in as caretaker: Social Security, and later Medicare and Medicaid. This eroded parents' desires to save for themselves and the children's moral responsibility to their parents: “The government will take care of me (them).” Now, with a whole lot (about seven in ten) of elderly people unable to pay for more than a few years of nursing home care, and baby boomers waiting in the wings, states are saying, “No, we won't,” and forwarding the bill back to the kids. “We made this mess. Now you fix it!”
There is nothing in this brief analysis that suggests that the reasons why the elderly person is indigent ever play into whether the offspring are liable for their support. All that seems to matter is that the elderly person is indigent, and that there is some child of that person that can support them, but isn't. A doctor that made six figures for thirty years and spent it all would have the same chance of getting support as the janitor that made four figures or low-five figures for fifty years and (probably rightfully) had very little to show for it. The states just want people off of their books and on someone else's.
So, yeah, turn away your spendthrift parents at your own peril. If your parents are living paycheck to paycheck and have nothing saved for retirement, they're probably still not going to want to listen to your mini-lectures on thrift and the evils of carrying a balance on their credit cards. But when they say, “You'll support me in my old age,” you may not even have a choice, regardless of how financially illiterate and reticent they are. This would suggest that communicating with them, regardless of how futile it seems, is better for you than cordoning off your life from theirs.
Plan on it. Social Security and Medicare aren't getting any healthier.
Good post. I can't imagine turning away my parents, legal responsibility or not, just because they have sacrificed so much for me. The least I can do is sacrifice a little bit for them.
I always find those that say they can't imagine turning away their parents smug. Perhaps because they accepted so much from their parents and are still accepting help. Perhaps you did not get your money skills from parents who were poor with it and you wanted to make sure you were never like them.
My mother continues to refuse to work, citing health problems. She took the child support my father gave her for my sister and squandered it. The home she lives in has not had the back taxes paid until 2001. It continues to deteriorate. Recently there was a judgment against her for liens on the house. I am waiting for the day it is deemed unlivable and is sold from underneath her due to foreclosure. I have no idea how close she is to this outcome. How do I not know? Because every time I call her, and ask her questions – as non confrontational as possible, she tells me it is, “none of my business.”
My father-in-law finds no problem with running up credit card bills. He worked hard all of his life, he deserves these “things”. Despite the fact my in-laws did not have good money skills while their children were growing up, my husband’s grandmother did – and saved for their college education through investments. Some of my sister-in-law’s investments in her name were cashed to purchase their home in the country after his grandmother’s death. When my grandmother died and we had a problem with her will causing my husband and I to decided to update ours. I had a casual conversation with my mother-in-law about their will and if they need to update theirs. It got back to me that I was money grubbing. Never did I ask what they planned to leave us; never did I say even say the word “money”.
My father is the exception to everyone, and where I like to think I got my work ethic from. He saves for his vacations and pays in cash. During the divorce he took a second job as a cleaning person after hours to make some more money. He has a 401k, and his car will be paid off this year. If my father ever needed help could I imagine turning him away? No. I would help him in a heart beat because I know it would take an extraordinary circumstance to put the man in peril.
I believe it is our responsibility as the kids to make sure our parents have food on the table and a roof over their head. If the food has to be purchased with food stamps, or the home is in low income housing – so be it. They made their own bed and they have to lie in it.
I would care for my parents if they needed it. However, I don't know how I feel about states forcing children to foot the bill for parents' care (especially if the child/parent relationship is damaged).
"Basically, things were running nicely until the government stepped in as caretaker: Social Security, and later Medicare and Medicaid."
That certainly is an opinion, not a fact. I don't mean to say these programs aren't a mess, but the gov't created them to fill a need, not the other way around.
Anyway, interesting article. I have two sisters, one of which shows promise of being financially stable (the other is TBD) so at least there won't be just me. But I expect I'll have to help out in some ways. They work quite hard but are also not at all careful with their money.
I think such laws are immoral; now where' my soap box.
Parents may choose to have a children. However, children do not choose to have parents. Therefore I don't see the children owing anything legally to their parents. Also parents do not owe anything to their adult children. Ultimately, it therefore comes down to however good the filial relationships are.
As mentioned above, I would bail out fiscally responsible parents. I would even bail out fiscally irresponsible family members once but no more than once (I have done so). Generally I do not interfere in people's financial affairs (other than my wife). However, if this becomes standard, I would either move to a state that puts a premium on personal freedom or I would start to interfere financially with whoever could/would mooch on me. If forced upon me, I would say, they essentially become my dependents and thus they would be living under my conditions. That is not going to be a walk in the park.
Jacob has an important point about children not really getting to choose to have parents. They also didn't get a chance to raise those parents so they have no control over how their parents act.
As for whether or not one could/should turn them away, I think that's entirely situational. But I plan to be responsible (if I'm even a parent) and do my best not to become a burden on my kids. My parents have done the same as my grandfather did…which is good. My grandmother is only a small burden on her kids. Micah's parents have never had any money. They've always flirted with the poverty line and bankruptcy (not spendthrifts, but some bad life decisions). I don't know how that will play out.
HOLY COW!! I cannot believe this load of bull. I am in no way responsible for my parents idiotic decisions. I would provide for my mother's most basic needs, but I mean basic. The reason I say this, while I love my mother and would never want to see her in dire straights, I also watch her getting manicures every other week, eating out all the time, buying which ever new toy or gadget she decides she wants, etc. She is so far in debt and its ALL her fault. She has made one enormous horrible life altering decision one right after the other. I have beaten my brains out trying to help her. I've tried talking with her about finances, budgeting, saving for purchases instead of using credit, (as well as the many health issues she has) and do you know what I ALWAYS get in return? "You'll always have a car payment" and "I just can't do that" or "Those are just little things, I need to find out what the actual problem is and fix it"(rather than take small steps to relieve the symptoms, she'd rather suffer with them until the doctor cures the undiagnosible problem completely). The point is, children CANNOT LEGALLY take responsibility of their parents decisions, so they sure as heck should not be held responsible for their consequences.
And just on a side note, the person who said SSI and such were created to fill a need and haven't messed things up; the goal may have been to help, but when the government takes control, the proverbial crap hits the fan.
Joshua: Are you related to me? You might as well have described MY mother, and the idea that I may be responsible for her has been weighing on me recently. I even helped her make a budget last summer, and less than twelve hours later she blew it by at least $200. She simply does not want to learn how to live within her means. I haven't seen any indication she is willing to change.
It's going to be UGLY in about 10-15 years.
"This eroded parents’ desires to save for themselves"
Not really. They saved a little, but it was never very much. Before SS, parents moved in with their children when they retired. Something to keep in mind if SS is ever cut.
what a horrific load of insanity and ugly is a massive understatement.
quite tru: children cannot chose their parents & cannot force them to be functional, rational, responsible.
i may love my parents yet i cannot realistically support them when i have trouble enough supporting my kid, and living in a 2BD apt just where the heck would i put'm?
plus, i've done the bail out already & it cost me my marriage & darned near my job.
i'd love to have functional, rational, responsible parents to work out mutual help, but that is not reality for my family or many other's families.
Sounds like a triple-threat to Baby Boomers and Generation X – they're already pressured to save enough for themselves (retirement), their kids (college), and now for their parents, too.
Would I care for my mother and/or mother-in-law if they needed it? Certainly. But it shouldn't be a legal obligation. As others here have said, you can't pick your parents, and you (usually) can't influence their behavior, either.
I think this just shows how this issue cannot be generalized, and you can't really judge the decisions that other adult children make about their parents. Because I have great parents who supported me their whole lives and paid for private school and college for my sister and me, I cannot imagine turning them away when they are in financial need, even if it is the result of their own poor decisions. Yes, they have not always made the best financial choices, but if they hadn't spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on us, they would have a lot more to live on now that they are in their 70s. I feel a tremendous debt to them that can never be repaid and I know I would sacrifice whatever was necessary to make sure they are well cared for and comfortable for the rest of their lives. But, I also realize that others did not have the same support and advantages my parents provided. I can certainly understand why some adult children do not feel one whit of responsibility for bailing their parents out of their financial messes.
Commenters should probably read the NCPA analysis before getting too stressed; these laws are almost never enforced, and may in fact be unenforceable, as federal law prohibits the consideration of the finances of anyone other than a spouse when determining whether a person is eligible for care.
I agree with previous posters that these theoretical parents who sacrifice for twenty years or longer are surely not as commonplace as this post suggests. I, and many of my peers, are appreciative of having food and a roof over our heads but consider that the minimum responsibility of someone who chooses to bring a child into this world (I certainly don't expect my son to repay me for feeding him for the next fifteen years!). However, I, and many of my peers, have been financially independent (not always by choice) for our entire adult lives – I haven't received a penny in support from my parents since I walked out the door for college!
It isn't really an issue of money, per se. Had my parents shown any interest in my life or family in the past ten years, I would be more inclined to support them in their later years, regardless of if they had supported me financially. I think that the Boomers are not merely going to have to face the fact of their financial insolvency at retirement, they are going to be stunned to find that a lifetime of self-involvement at the expense of your children's happiness and stability does NOT translate to your children happily lining up to fund your retirement.
Hold on there, folks–no sense getting excited. These are laws that were enacted in the '40s & '50s. Over 30 years ago, most of the states left the "relative responsibility" laws on the books but removed the enforcement mechanisms. Those that didn't still stopped enforcing these statutes.
Laws like this are of dubious constitutionality.
It's simple really. Our government has for years been stealing the money from social security and medicare trust funds. Now that they realized that they are not going to be able to fund all these programs, they want to pass along the responsibility to someone else.
Democrats and Republicans are one and the same. They seek power and money, which they achieve by increasingly grabbing control of our lives and money. They use divide and conquer strategy to shift the focus on inane debates and to make the people think they have two distinct choices. Good luck guys in getting through the coming Depression.