Freed by 50

“You and your sister are going to have to step up and chip in to take care of your mother.”

I nearly crashed the car I turned so hard to glare at my father. We were just running out to pick up some sandwiches, but he decided that was the moment to breach the subject of his future passing. The conversation couldn’t have gone worse.

It started when my father told me that they have $300,000…in equity…to take care of my mother when he and his pension die. No, my father doesn’t have survivor benefits, he chose to take the money up front so he can golf five days a week. My parents have played the equity game on the most Boomer level ever. My whole life they’ve moved every seven years, usually to more and more expensive homes, run up their credit cards until there’s no credit left, borrowed against the equity in their home, and moved when the equity ran out. The music stopped in 2006 when there was no more credit or equity or family members to bail them out, and they had to declare bankruptcy and sell their house. And now we’re back to equity being money again.

I’ve known this was coming for a long time. I’ve told them time and time again that I will not steal from my children to finance my parents. I know the play here, though. It’ll come through guilt. Unfortunately I’ve seen them do it to my uncle, my grandmother, my great aunt, and others. They’ll put me in a position to “pay “help” or end the relationship, leaving me to live with the guilt when they’re gone. I won’t budge, but my sister will.

Back to the conversation. My father speaks in absolutes. He leaves no room for debate. To him it’s cut and dry. If he dies before my mother, she has no income other than Social Security, so my sister and I simply have to make up the shortfall and pay her bills.

When I was 17 I told my parents I could never live my financial life like they do. I’ve dedicated almost 20 years of my adult life to fixing my family tree and ending the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck on pensions that die with that generation. I started saving for my kids futures before they were even born. I love my parents, but they’ve played the grasshopper to my ants for nearly 80 years. I’m not going to leave them in cold to die, but levels need to be set.

Just like my 17 year old self, I’ve forced myself to have the hard conversations with my family many, many times in my life. When they try to brush it off with things like “we’ll deal with it when the time comes,” or “lets not talk about that now,” or “I know you’ll do what’s right at the time,” I’ve pushed through even when it hurt. And that’s the lesson here.

Whether you’re FI or not, successful or not, or find yourself facing familial expectations that you can’t or won’t meet, unfortunately the best way to deal with it is head on. Believe me, I’ve tried avoidance, passive aggressive responses, even acquiescence at times, but the only way to deal with this kind of issue is the hard way. And you have to be ready for the fallout (within reason, it’s never happened to me but if things get ugly be ready to dial 911).

In the case of my own parents, when the eventuality of one of their passing comes around, I will mourn and I will help through the time of transition. I’ve also told them that I will sell the house, use the equity to fund an apartment for them and that I wont be funding a country club lifestyle with a house on a golf course that even I don’t live. I can provide groceries if need be, but they will have to be reasonable.

This was a hard conversation, and I wish I could say I kept my head on my shoulders the whole time. I wish I could say that about everyone involved. In the end, however, my intentions were made plain, my sister was fully in agreement, and my parents had to begrudgingly accept that this is where things stand.

I have struggled for many years with my parents financial decisions. It’s shaped who I am today. I’ve written about it a few times (here, and here for example), but it is never easy to share, even with internet strangers. My sincere hope in posting this is that someone, somewhere, going through a similar issue reads this and has the confidence to have a similar difficult conversation.