Mom and Dad prefer that I remain their caretaker as opposed to hiring staff from the senior community home. They need about 40 hours a week and I am happy to do so but cannot work an outside job as well. There are funds to pay for this help and Mom and Dad agree I should be paid whatever the facility would charge. I've agreed to less pay and more help. Siblings are very upset at this arrangement although I've done it for free for a year and a half and lost substantial income during this time and have held out that my time has value and I'm doing it alone and deserve to be paid. This doesn't mean I don't love them and wouldn't do whatever is necessary but I'm beginning to feel resentful to others who could help but choose not to.
They would have to pay anyone else for help. You shouldn’t be expected to do a tough job for free. You need a salary to live.
Do they work for free at their jobs? If they object to you being paid then tell them to donate their pay from their job to you. See how they like being in your shoes. Are they volunteering at work? No. Tell them that you are not interested in being a volunteer. Period!
Too bad for me the sister who has control over the parents' checkbook can't seem to remember the conversations in which I've calmly clarified those points.
She exhausts me as much as caregiving my dad.
Asked by rosiemcgeesmith | Aug 9, 2015 | +Follow Answers
Carol Bradley Bursack, 36 hrs ago Over the span of two decades, author, columnist, consultant and speaker Carol Bradley Bursack cared for a neighbor and six elderly family members. Her experiences inspired her to pen, "Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories," a portable support group book for caregivers.
Here we get back to the fact that we all have different lives.
People who don't have a spouse who brings in some income are left with finding a way to quit their job and still survive financially or else hire someone else to care for the parent. There should be no guilt in accepting payment for providing care if the family can afford it and it saves the parent from having to hire a stranger.
Likely no payment will compensate for the lost wages in full such as lost Social Security and subsidized payments for group policies as Freqflyer said. But some payment can help make it possible for an adult child to quit a job and help the parent rather than hire other care providers if that’s the preferred choice all around.
However, this should be done with the knowledge of the family and with some legal advice so that if the parents ever need to go on Medicaid there are no questions about the legality of the pay.
Most people would gladly provide the care for free and most do a lot of that, anyway, but if a job is lost the money to live must come from somewhere. Often people will combine families to make it work. Others can do shifts so that no family member must give up his or her job. Some work up a contract with the parent. Others find a way to provide the care and still pay their rent.
Whatever needs to be done is okay as long as it's open and above board.
Take care,
Carol
JessieBelle
Give a Hug
29 hrs ago
I think we need to stand on the outside and look at the question of whether a caregiving child should be paid. The thought of caregiving out of love is a nice one and it is a good ideal. But let's take a typical situation. Say, there are three children, one that took care of the parents without pay for 10 years and two that dropped by at Christmas. The will was written leaving equal shares of the estate to the three children. If they had not been helped by the one child, the last two years of their lives would have been spent in a nursing home. They stayed at home with hospice and the caregiving child attending them -- first the father, then the mother. Because of this, there was $250,000 left in their estate. (Remember this is hypothetical.) This money would have been gone and their home would probably have a lien on it if the caregiving child had not been there.
Thinking of this, would it be wrong for the parents to pay the caregiving child? Or is it better to save it to the estate to be shared by all siblings equally?
Emotions and resources really have to be kept separate. When it comes to love, children can never do enough for their parents, and parents can never do enough for their children. It is a two-way thing. The money part should be unemotional. People can have children without having to quit their jobs, because childcare is affordable and schools are free. Adult care is expensive, as well as being more physically difficult. I think it is quite okay to say, "I will quit work to take care of you if you'll pay me ___ to pay my bills each month." Each side loses some, but it would work better than what we often see now. If done correctly, it can be done with mutual love and respect -- both sides doing for each other.
And if someone on the outside doesn't like it, well, they got no dog in the race. And if the siblings resent seeing their inheritance shrink, they can be glad that they were able to work and live normal lives while the caregiving sibling took care of important things.
Yes, but it rarely is. Inheritance fights are common because human nature is selfish to varying degrees.
There's also the factor of having a less than ideal childhood and resentment when a parent needs difficult, often dirty help. Some aren't cut out for it and didn't have their own kids for similar reasons.
It's important to not have any caregiver resenting their situation too much, including sullen, ineffective pros who mainly get into it because they can't do much else. It takes highly empathetic personalities to do the best job.
Marlo Sollitto
Mary, a 74-year-old Florida woman, suffered a stroke. She needed help with bathing, dressing, food shopping, meal preparation, laundry and housekeeping. Her state Medicaid plan covered the cost of a home-health care worker to provide those services, but the local agencies were short-staffed and couldn't send helpers on the schedule Mary needed.
So her daughter took time off work to care for Mary. Soon after, Mary and her daughter learned about Cash and Counseling, a non-traditional Medicaid program pioneered by New Jersey, Florida and Arkansas with seed grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration on Aging and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Cash and Counseling participants may use their Medicaid-provided personal assistance budgets to hire their own personal care aides as well as purchase items or services, including home modifications that help them live independently. By redirecting personal assistance funds from agencies to consumers themselves, Cash and Counseling allows people to hire whomever they want to provide their care and decide for themselves if they would rather hire a home health aide to cook for them, or pay a friend or relative to do it. The services paid for by the state are all part of the elder's authorized Medicaid care plan. What's different is that in many cases, family members and friends chosen by the elder are providing those services instead of an agency worker.
Today, the grants are available in 12 more states—Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.
According to the Cash and Counseling website, the program was created because, "family caregivers are the backbone of the long-term care system, providing millions of hours of care every year for no compensation and frequently at great cost to their own emotional health. They're burned out and exhausted from juggling work, family responsibilities, and caregiving. In addition, many caregivers have to reduce their work hours or even give up their jobs to take care of their loved ones. By supporting caregivers, we're helping them hang in longer, and, hopefully, relieving some of their stress. Keep in mind, that even with Cash and Counseling support, family caregivers are typically paid lower-than-average wages and, in most cases, are paid for only a small fraction of the hours of service they provide."
To apply for the program, elders apply through Medicaid. They are assessed the same way they would be for traditional agency-provided services. If they choose the Cash and Counseling option, they work with the program's staff to develop an individual budget and care plan.
To learn more about the Cash and Counseling program, visit the website at www.cashandcounseling.org.
Access the Medicaid website at www.cms.hhs.gov/home/medicaid.asp.
The Community for Family Caregivers is an online forum created to Support Caregivers of Elderly and Aging Parents. The material of this web site is provided for informational purposes only. AgingCare.com does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment; or legal, financial or any other professional services advice.
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It highly depends on whether there's financial hardship to the parents and/or their estate. A moral child should be willing to give discounted help if there is. In primitive or older societies it's assumed that extended family should give free help in old age, and some tribes never had modern paychecks for comparison. Moneycentric attitudes don't blend well with morality.
It also comes down to whether you consider returning the "favor" of your own raising as a reciprocal duty to your parents, or see it as purely something they chose to do (with or without modern birth control). Unhappy kids could claim "I didn't choose to be born" or "you treated me badly so you owe me reparations," but assigning dollars to a degree of abuse is full of potential fraud.
shocked and hurt by their attitude toward me. Not sure why I’m shocked. I guess a child always hopes for the best.
thanks everyone
Good luck!
Good luck to you.
Your sibs should just be grateful that your parents have you and shut up.
Tootsieboot, you are right that a 1099 worker needs to pay their own SS/Medicare taxes, but this means that they are now responsible for the entire 15.2%, not just half. They also would need to have workmans compensation insurance in the event that they were injured doing their job. Some private medical insurance policies have disclaimers that they could deny claims for workmen injuries sustained in the commission of their job. Not to mention federal, state and unemployment benefits.
It is a far better idea to use a payroll service that handles everything, then bills the "employer". This puts the labor burden on the "employer" and not the employee/caregiver. Yes, they get a percentage of the payroll, but they are making sure that ALL are protected. Especially vital in situations like this, there are siblings contesting their sisters getting paid, it needs to be handled carefully and legally.
Another thing that I don't see mentioned here is what happens to the caregiver after her charges die? They absolutely need the ability to collect unemployment to sustain their own lives until they can get another job, which is more difficult because they have been out of the ever changing workplace for ?weeks?months?years?
What happens if they are severely injured caregiving? Personal insurance doesn't pay you a portion of your wages while you are recovering from a work injury, however, workmans compensation does and it covers medical expenses 100%, no deductibles or co-pays.
There are so many reasons to do it legally and have the senior use a payroll service that ensures everyone is protected.
This is W2 work and telling people otherwise puts them and their seniors at risk.
Please research the laws before you tell someone to break them.
Please read up on the documentation Medicaid would need to have if your presence in the home is keeping your parents out of a nursing home. If you provide these services for at least two years, and have proper documentation, you may be able to protect the home equity from a Medicaid claim if that is needed in the future. But you need to have everything properly documented.