First Gen American asks:
Do your parents have plans? Will you be helping with their care, why or why not?
#1: My parents… they have a lot of money saved. We probably won’t have to help them monetarily because likely their money will get them into a nice nursing home and Medicaid can take over when it runs out. They’re both still living at home and seem active, though my father obviously has some kind of dementia and my mother is in denial about it. When my grandma got Alzheimer’s my mom swore she would get herself into one of those communities where you live in an apartment on your own and are guaranteed to gradually transition to nursing care (my grandma was too far gone to get into the one in our town, so she ended up living with one of my mom’s younger brothers since after my sister went to college my parents had nobody able to lift my grandma anymore). But unless my father dies first, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
My in-laws do not have plans. My MIL definitely wants to be allowed to die if she ends up with dementia. She’s got all sorts of “DNR” stuff signed. She did not enjoy taking care of her mother and does not want to go through that herself or put her children through that. We’re not sure about my FIL. If they need help we will work together with DH’s siblings (probably us dealing with the money stuff and some set of them being boots on the ground since they live in the same state and we make more money) to figure out what needs to be done. It’s likely they would move the debilitated family member to a care facility closer to them like my MIL moved her mother.
#2: No, and possibly. Parents are still in pretty good shape. MIL may need help sooner and FIL passed away early and unexpectedly.