Most people fail to plan their lifecycles in advance, especially their last 20 to 30 years. And that time is just when they more likely than not will require more help caring for themselves.
“Old folks,” as those over 60 eventually get called by their kids, often feel they are doing “pretty good” and blithly expect to do so until they die. Sandwiched children, usually aged 30 to 40 with their own needy kids on one hand and their soon-to-be needy parents on the other, focus on the urgent needs of their kids at least as long as their parents keep on getting by … until, of course, something unexpected happens.
Failing to plan correctly almost always makes for bad responses when sudden or eventual disasters, disability, disease, and death occur. Grandma loses her balance or Grandpa loses his mind or something else occurs and then someone has to stop doing whatever it is they had planned to do and now start doing whatever it is they never planned to do. And such spur-of-the-moment needs that turn into day-in-and-day-out duties often cause more problems than they solve.
And then things run downhill something like this:
- Usually, everyone delegates responsibility for helping to one person.
- The older person or people needing the help get cranky and then so does the person giving the help.
- Then caregiving burnout happens and that just makes matters even worse.
A much better solution is to begin doing LifeCycle planning long before you need LifeCycle performance.