- #1
turbo
Gold Member
- 3,165
- 56
Do you have a will, and a living will that specifies what types of medical interventions you will allow once your body fails you? My wife and I have been pretty dedicated to establishing and modifying both, as needed.
Even with both, once you have lost mental faculties (like my mother-in-law who has dementia) your kids will probably spar with each other about how to interpret your wishes. It can get nasty, and it has gotten so with my wife's family. There are 4 siblings who are retired or do not work by choice, and they form a bloc that "votes" to keep their mother at home until she dies instead of getting her into a nursing home (there is a good one about 10 minutes away) that can provide competent personal care and medical supervision. The remaining 3 siblings that work are expected to provide their full share of the 24/7 monitoring that their mother needs. My wife and her younger sister work full time 40 hours a week, so they each lose a day from every weekend. Another sister works part-time though she is one of the cadre that resists the nursing home option.
If you are willing to cause your children to break life-long bonds and get at each others' throats, all you have to do is to neglect to include your end-of-life wishes in your living will. Don't want Hospice care or long-term care in a nursing home? Please say so, and establish some penalties for your children who might try to ignore your wishes. If you are not detailed and quite specific, your kids will project their own wishes on you and end up carrying life-long grudges against their siblings who disagree. During a family meeting a week or so ago, an older brother accused my wife of wanting to "throw our mother away" because she thought that the nursing home might provide better care for her than a mish-mash of amateurs with no training.
Even with both, once you have lost mental faculties (like my mother-in-law who has dementia) your kids will probably spar with each other about how to interpret your wishes. It can get nasty, and it has gotten so with my wife's family. There are 4 siblings who are retired or do not work by choice, and they form a bloc that "votes" to keep their mother at home until she dies instead of getting her into a nursing home (there is a good one about 10 minutes away) that can provide competent personal care and medical supervision. The remaining 3 siblings that work are expected to provide their full share of the 24/7 monitoring that their mother needs. My wife and her younger sister work full time 40 hours a week, so they each lose a day from every weekend. Another sister works part-time though she is one of the cadre that resists the nursing home option.
If you are willing to cause your children to break life-long bonds and get at each others' throats, all you have to do is to neglect to include your end-of-life wishes in your living will. Don't want Hospice care or long-term care in a nursing home? Please say so, and establish some penalties for your children who might try to ignore your wishes. If you are not detailed and quite specific, your kids will project their own wishes on you and end up carrying life-long grudges against their siblings who disagree. During a family meeting a week or so ago, an older brother accused my wife of wanting to "throw our mother away" because she thought that the nursing home might provide better care for her than a mish-mash of amateurs with no training.