Pxfuel
At some point in your life, you might need to take care of your ageing parents. One of the best options to make caring for your elderly parents easy is for them to move in with you. However, you need to know if moving in with you is right for your family – take some time to reflect on these essential questions below.
What Kind of Care will Your Ageing Parents Need?
Before deciding to move your parents into your home, consider their physical and mental health. Are they healthy and independent, needing minimal care? If yes, bringing them might give a chance to bond with other family members. In some cases, health issues might be the reason for the change. Here, you might need to answer this question “Should I be looking for senior living near me?”
How Much Supervision Can You Provide?
Before you bring your parents in, you need to check your schedule and needs. Will you be willing to take your parents to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Additionally, you will need to be realistic and proactive – it’s important to know if you will be able to provide them with care and attention when needed. Also, know your limit.
How’s Your Relationship with Your Elderly Parents?
For most people, caring for their elderly parents is fulfilling. You should know if moving to your parents with you is a positive way of giving back the care, they showered on you. Additionally, you should consider your relationship with them to know if you can live together peacefully.
Can You Accommodate Your Elderly Parent’s Needs?
Elderly parents with critical health conditions might not be able to climb stairs or bathe themselves easily without help. Is your house safe for your ageing parents? Can you afford a renovation that includes electric chair lifts or installing a lamp? Additionally, you should think about these questions: Is there an available bathroom near them? Will someone have to give up their space for them?
Will Your Ageing Parents Contribute to the House Costs?
When you have someone living in your house, have it in mind that the house costs will increase. So before bringing in your parents, you need to know whether your parents will be contributing to the expenses or if you will be getting caregiver tax deductions. Additionally, you should consider if you have relatives or siblings that can help with your parents’ expenses.
Will Caring for Them Bring You Stress?
If you have a full-time job, you should know if you can handle the extra stress of bringing in your ageing parents to come to live with you. Most caregivers usually lose their jobs due to the stress of their demanding work and ageing parents. Additionally, you might also be prone to illness due to stress. Caregiver stress can result in depression, anxiety, and other health problems.
Can You Afford to Accommodate Your Parents?
Even if your home can easily be changed to accommodate the needs of your aging parents, it might be a costly endeavor. Getting a downstairs bathroom, widening doorframes, installing stairlifts and other renovations that might be required to ensure that you can provide the best care for your parents at home can quickly add up to a large amount, so it’s important to be sure that you can budget for it.
Will It Affect Your Relationship With Your Family?
If you have a family of your own at home, consider how taking in your elderly parents to provide their care is going to have an impact on your relationship with your spouse and children. Will you still be able to spend as much time with your kids when your parents are at home? How does your spouse get on with your parents? Will taking in your parents affect your relationship with your partner?
Could Your Parents Get Better Care Elsewhere?
Often, the idea of bringing our parents home to live with us so that we can care for them as they age is nice, but it’s not always realistic. Consider the standard of care that you will be able to offer your parents and whether their quality of life will improve compared to being cared for elsewhere. For example, if you live alone and work long hours, that could leave an elderly parent on their own for long periods of the day, which can lead to loneliness and depression. In this case, a nearby retirement community, where your parent can socialize and has care available around the clock, might be a better option for your family.
Do You Have the Space for More People at Home?
Bringing your elderly parents to live with you might not be the best idea if it means that your home is going to be crowded and cramped. If you’re living in a home that’s already too small for your needs, adding more adult residents is only going to make the situation worse. It’s only worth considering having your aging parents come to live with you if you can provide them with ample space that doesn’t disrupt the rest of the household.
Will Your Parents Enjoy Their Stay?
Be honest with yourself – is your home really the best place for your elderly parents to be? For example, if you have a growing family with a newborn baby, having your elderly parents at home means that this could be a disruptive situation for everybody, especially if they require a lot of care and won’t be able to deal with the chaos that often comes from having young kids. On the other hand, if your parents are quite independent and don’t require a lot of care, they could really help your family out too.
In addition to that, you must take time to care for yourself, so ensure you can balance your needs with theirs before deciding to move them into your home. However, if you choose to care for your parents at home, you can check out different support groups – both offline and online for tips and advice on how to successfully care for your ageing parents.
