Start the Elder Care Conversation

LIVING IN RETIREMENT | The communication gap between parents and their adult kids is stunning.

- Janet Bodnar

Judging from the e-mails I receive, it’s reasonable to assume that a fair number of retired Kiplinger’s readers are involved in the physical and/or financial care of a spouse, parent or other family member (see “Living in Retirement,” Feb.). And it also appears likely that many of them didn’t factor the caretaker role into their planning.

Reader Ira Worden writes that after his father became mentally incompetent, he took over his father’s duties as trustee of a family trust and managed his mother’s finances. “But my father had been faking being okay for a while, which I learned after I managed to figure things out,” says Worden. “This was not an easy or planned handoff!”

When preparing for retirement, “we make decisions about pursuing a hobby or moving to a new place, but we rarely make decisions about elder care,” says Suzanne Asaff Blankenship, author of How to Take Care of Old People Without Losing Your Marbles.