Age Lessons Blog

“We’re all grown up now and dealing with grown-up problems like elder care, right? Well, partially. The extent to which adult siblings actually deal with and resolve parent care problems is almost certainly correlated with their ability to resolve or ignore sibling rivalry issues. So, while the problems are definitely adult-sized, the ego interaction is likely to be all about one’s inner child. The child who feels unloved for themselves and unrecognized for their life accomplishments.

If you find yourself identifying with that description, don’t worry. You are not alone. Fully one-third of adults report that their sibling relationships are strained, with unresolved conflict undulating beneath the surface like a varicose vein.  Research simply underscores what every child knows to be true—try though they might, parents love unequally. The only difference is, with age, they’re just more open about it. Age acts like a giant magnifying glass, amplifying all that is good, and bad, about our personalities and our relationships. If you resented your siblings growing up, you likely still do.”

[excerpted from The Daughter Trap: Taking Care of Mom and Dad…and You, St. Martin’s Press, 2010]

“For families supporting elders aging in place at home, local caregivers estimate their out-of-pocket expenses at around $5,500 a year, while long-distance caregivers believe the number is closer to $8,728 annually. The cash outlays purchased household goods and food [42%], transportation [39%], medical co-payments and drugs [31%], clothing [21%] and home repair and maintenance [13%].

In addition to the phone survey above, the 2007 National Alliance for Caregiving/ Evercare study also included a written diary section. This careful daily tracking of expenses revealed that diarists, most of whom resided with the elder, spent $14,832 per year for live-ins, $14,064 for long-distance diarists and $8,496 for locals.

These findings suggest that actual out-of-pocket expenses are significantly higher than people realize or are willing to admit, since the spending is viewed as a necessity, not an option. Most caregivers can’t really establish an annual budget, because they can’t anticipate the dramatic and sometimes severe changes in health status among the elderly. It’s a situation that will only get worse as the aging population in the U.S. swells to unprecedented size.”

[excerpted from The Daughter Trap: Taking Care of Mom and Dad…and You, St. Martin’s Press, 2010]

“Elder care is neither a woman’s issue nor a man’s issue. It’s a human issue. It affects everyone in the family, in the community, in the country. It’s burning through resources at an alarming pace, more than $309 billion per year by some estimates. Various and sundry groups address elder care from a variety of perspectives: tax credits, Medicare payments, leaves of absence, medical education, respite help, inter-family cash transfers, transport vouchers. There’s an idea floated a minute and the competition for funding is intense.

How can elder care proponents gain traction? How can they grab headlines, focus attention and prompt state and federal legislatures to take action? How can they ramp up a rapid response? Fortunately, a precedent exists. Women need to do for elder care in the 21st century, what they did for child care in the 20th century: relentlessly pursue a common goal and help shape a multi-dimensional response with private sector initiatives leading the way.

It hasn’t been easy, but there are lessons to be learned from the evolution of child care services that can accelerate the adoption of elder care programs.
Lesson #1: don’t wait for the government.
Lesson #2: build a compelling financial argument for employers.
Lesson #3: let the free market engine drive innovative solutions.

Like child care, the biggest issue in elder care is the availability of services. Like child care, once available, competitive forces should conspire to solve price inflation and make elder care more affordable.”

[excerpted from The Daughter Trap: Taking Care of Mom and Dad…and You, St. Martin’s Press, 2010]

What’s a bigger secret than gays in the military? Try caregivers in the workplace. People providing elder care hide that fact for fear of repercussions at work. They’re wise to do so according to a Society of Human Resource Management study that shows admitting to being a caregiver can derail your career.

However, the demographic freight train hurtling down the tracks may force a policy change, and soon. Consider the fact that in just three years, more than half of the workforce will be dealing with elder care issues. That should place elder care squarely in the headlights, an undeniable fact of work-life balance for companies interested in recruiting and keeping the best talent available.

It just makes good sense for the bottom line as well as employee morale. For every $1 invested in elder care benefits, companies reap between $3-$14 in improved productivity.  Conservative estimates suggest that elder care costs American businesses north of $33.6 billion annually. A modest investment in elder care benefits would allow companies to recoup $100.8-$470.4 billion each year. Wish that deal was available for my investment portfolio!

That traditional holiday trip to Grandma’s house just changed from “over the river and through the woods”, to “up the stairs and down the hall”.  According to a 2010 Pew Research Report “The Return of the Multi-Generational Family Household”, the number of three generation-households in the U.S. exploded in the last decade, growing by 30% to 6.6 million households.

This is a boon for all family members: older adults who now have a vital role to play in the family circle; middle-aged parents who can count on in-house back-up to relieve work and time pressures; and children who have another loving relative on-site to help with homework, transportation and socialization.

When multi-generational households are defined as two adult generations living under one roof, 49 million Americans, or one in six people, reported residing in a multi-generational domicile. That number represents 16% of the U.S. population in 2008 and a complete reversal of the downward trend in multi-generational housing that started after World War II.

Contributing factors behind the trend included immigration, the rising median age of first marriages, unemployment and foreclosures. Looks like the family circle, once thought to be circling the drain, has resurfaced with renewed vigor in modern form.