Talking to Your Aging Parents about Money
This article is the third part of my series on helping aging parents with finances. This particular post was largely influenced by conversations with a very wise lady: my mom. She helped her own parents with their finances and had advice to give both as a daughter and a mother.
Read other articles in this series:
Part 1: Helping Parents with Finances
Part 2: How Caring for Aging Parents Fits into Your Financial Priorities
Talking to your parents about their financial situation can be one of the most challenging conversations you’ll have. How the discussion goes depends on many things, including your relationship with your parents, your siblings, everyone’s feelings about money, and their financial situation. Some are lucky enough to have parents who are open about their finances and are in a good situation, but that’s often not the case. No matter what your situation is, following these tips can help you have a more productive and positive conversation with your parents about money.
Get the right mindset
Talking about money is taboo for many people and is often fraught with complicated emotions around past decisions and experiences. Therefore it is critical that you approach conversations about money with compassion and understanding.
Understanding
Our parents grew up in a very different time. Women were of course expected to stay home, but they also had fewer options for childcare and it was more reasonable to expect that a family could be comfortable on one income. Pensions were more common. People didn’t live as long and didn’t expect to have to save as much for retirement.
From my mom: “My generation did not have any resources available for figuring it out and had to learn by experience. Women were not expected to handle finances and were usually left out of the loop on retirement planning. I had no idea until the divorce and my financial advisor helped me figure it out. No information was given to the "head of the family" either. No finance classes in HS just Home Ec for women. It was just the way things were done. Credit cards were not in common use until the ‘80s and many people did not understand how to use them and the consequences of not paying them in full.
Sure, maybe some of our parents could have done a better job of saving, but know that some of it wasn’t entirely their fault. Besides, blaming them isn’t going to improve the situation or your relationship.
Compassion
Aging isn’t easy. Life itself isn’t as easy as we think it should be. Things happen. However they got there, just know that your parents likely have complicated feelings about their past decisions and the process of getting old. It’s hard to accept help when you used to be perfectly competent. As my mom says, “No one wants to have their lifelong control taken away from them. Losing your mind and body does that enough.”
Knowing that your parents are struggling with this can help you approach the matter of their finances with greater patience and will ultimately lead to more productive conversations.
Love
If you’re lucky enough to love your parents, start there. Tell them you love them and care about them and want to help them in any way you can. Many parents will do anything for their children, especially when they know that you want the best for them. Even if love isn’t part of the picture, you can still start by expressing concern. Let them know you want to help them for their own sake.
Getting Started
Start early. The sooner you start having these conversations, the better. There’s a lot less pressure and there’s more you can do. When you wait until your parent is sick or starts having dementia, you’ll be much more rushed and have limited options.
Have casual mini-conversations. You don’t have to have a major family intervention where you sit down and have The Conversation. Gradually having more casual conversations about the topic of money and retirement will give you all practice and help everyone be more comfortable to talk about big things later.
If you live far away, have the conversation in person, but try to have it in a calm setting without too many distractions.
Ask your parents for advice. For example, “Mom, I’m putting $500/month into my 401k. Do you think that’s enough?” Parents love to give advice and help their children.
Mention an article you read. “Dad, I was reading this article about nursing home costs and I didn’t realize how expensive it is!”
Share a story about someone you know. “My coworker was telling me that her mom died last year and it was a nightmare because she didn’t have a will.”
Observe how your parents handled financial matters with their parents. Ask your parents what they did and how they felt about it. You can learn a lot this way.
Don’t talk about numbers or specifics until much later when you are dealing with logistics.
When you are beginning to have these conversations, it is important to focus on your relationship and to get a general sense of how everyone feels about the situation. You’re practicing talking about money so that you can have more in-depth and challenging conversations later. If you spring these conversations on your parents too quickly, they might feel attacked and get defensive. You can’t go from never talking about money straight to “Mom and Dad, you need to tell me how much money you have and how you’re going to pay for the nursing home.”
Additional Tips for Success
Involve your siblings. This might be incredibly challenging as well, but it helps if you’re on the same page.
Treat your parents like they are intelligent human beings.
Don’t be accusatory or judgmental. You don’t want your parents to hide things from you because they feel bad or are embarrassed.
Make sure that you are guiding your parents rather than telling them what to do. Let them make their own decisions and accept that you don’t have control over what they decide.
Set boundaries. If what you want and your parents want are not aligned, the only thing you can do is decide how you’re going to feel about it. It’s okay to decide that you’re not going to feel guilty. It’s okay to decide that you don’t want them to move in with you. It’s okay to set limits. You need to take care of yourself first.
For those with complex relationships
Society tends to paint pictures of seemingly perfect, loving families, but so often that is not true. Many of us have broken or challenging relationships with our parents. Some parents are physically or emotionally abusive. Others had their own struggles and were unavailable as parents. Sometimes, parents were just not there for whatever reason. In these cases, adult children often find themselves full of guilt and conflicting feelings.
If this describes your situation, I want you to know that it is okay to set boundaries. Decide what you can and cannot mentally and emotionally handle. Permit yourself to say “no” to things that you know will drain you. A mental health practitioner can help you sort out your thoughts and clarify how you want to interact with your aging parents.
Whatever your situation, be patient and kind to yourself. Acknowledge your emotions and know that this is a difficult topic.
***
I’m lucky to have a mother and mother-in-law who are open and receptive to such conversations, but even what that is the case, these conversations require a great deal of care.
Money comes with complex emotions related to past experiences and feelings about life in general. So when you talk about money, you’re not just talking about numbers and accounts. You’re talking about how someone feels about their past, their hopes for the future, and their worries about aging. It is therefore critical that you approach conversations about money from a perspective of love and understanding, no matter how receptive or not your parents may be.
These conversations may be hard, but if you can build trust and treat your parents with respect and compassion, you might just be able to guide them to solutions that work well for all of you.
Read the first two parts in this series:
Part 1: Helping Parents with Finances
Part 2: How Caring for Aging Parents Fits into Your Financial Priorities