As we move through life stages, family members (however you define family) take care of one another. It’s what family is all about. Over the years and through the decades we accept, prepare, and plan for the next life-stage.
Nowadays, retirement can refer to a period that may stretch out twenty or thirty years. We lack a phrase to describe the later phase when retirement years morph into interdependency and require increasing levels of assistance. Logically, retirement preparation should include preparing for long-term care needs. But few people prepare. Somehow this topic throws us for a loop.
We fail to plan for the inevitable: Mom and Dad will age, will probably live much longer than their parents did, and will probably require more specialized care over a longer period. More family caregivers are in the workforce—currently, some sixty percent work full- or part-time. This trend will continue, and those who have to pull back during their working years face substantial economic risk from loss of income, benefits, contributions to their own retirement savings, or reduced Social Security benefits.
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