Melissa P. Spickler, a wealth management advisor with the Spickler Wealth Management Group in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., was thrust into a position of becoming a caregiver for her aging mother with little warning.
Spickler and her sister, both of whom work full time, had been in denial about their mother, who not only was losing her cognitive skills but also doing irrational things like using postage stamps for tape or saying the housekeeper stole her address book when she did not have a housekeeper. At that point, the problem could no longer be ignored, and Spickler had to act.
At around the same time, her husband’s father began to decline, and he began thinking his son was a Civil War soldier. “At first, we were in denial. We refused to believe that there was anything wrong.” Eventually, the search began for competent help, logistics had to be dealt with and someone had to take over the finances.
Unfortunately, Spickler’s situation is no longer rare. The number of adults in their 50s and 60s with living parents is not just growing, it is exploding.
The number of adults in the United States in their 60s who have at least one parent alive has more than doubled since 1998, according to research by the Urban Institute. Part of this is due to the increase in population of people in their 50s and 60s. This is creating a growing number of issues for the senior population, for the advisors who are trying to help them and for society.
In 1998, 20% of the population that was then age 60 through 69 had at least one living parent, which translated into 3.9 million people who had to confront issues with an aging parent. By 2016, nearly 28% of the 60- to 69-year-old population, or just shy of 10 million people in this age range, had a living parent.
In a slightly older report, the Pew Institute found in 2014 that 52% of U.S. residents in their 60s, or 17.4 million people, were financially supporting either a parent or adult child, up from 45% in 2005. “Compared to just 10 years ago, I am seeing three times as many clients who are dealing with helping older parents,” says James Sullivan, vice president and financial advisor at Essex Financial in Essex, Conn. “Clients are asking me, what do you get a 100-year-old for his or her birthday? That question used to never come up. Now it comes up every once in a while.”
Becoming a caregiver for a parent can alter the retirement plans of the adult child. It can stop the child from traveling or volunteering. “It is tremendously challenging and can put immense emotional stress on a person” to cope with those changes, Sullivan says. People dealing with these situations should consult an eldercare attorney, because there can be unintended consequences to many actions.
“For instance, what if the parent moves in with one of the children? How does that affect the inheritances of the siblings? What if one sibling provides more of the care or even moves in with the parent? How should the deed to the house reflect this?” Sullivan asks. “These things can change the retirement that the child envisioned and can create problems within family.”
Having gone through the situation, Spickler says she now often spots problems with clients’ parents before the clients do. “These situations are much more prevalent now than they were even five years ago,” she says. “I confront my clients when I see a problem with their parents and then they can no longer deny it.”