Planning a wedding is exciting. Mapping out a vacation is fun.
Figuring how to afford care for your confused, elderly father? That one may never cross your mind — at least, not until you need more money to care for him.
"Never thought about it," Natasha Shamone-Gilmore, 58, says about her younger self. "Never ever."
She thinks about it a lot these days. Shamone-Gilmore, a computer trainer in Maryland, now shares a modest home with her husband, 24-year-old son and 81-year-old father.
Like millions of other middle-aged Americans, she had long regarded her parents as robust adults, more than capable of managing their own affairs. "My mom was a very active woman; my dad ... was a Safeway employee for 40-something years," she said.
But time does what it does, and today, her father needs a caretaker. So she has had to step into that role and figure out how to make it all work financially.
Shamone-Gilmore's family is one of three multigenerational households being profiled by NPR this spring. Their stories will help highlight the importance of family financial planning. The series, Family Matters, will continue in installments each Tuesday into June.
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Preparing for a Future That Includes Aging Parents
You can plan all you want and that doesn't mean it's going to happen the way you plan.
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