Your Plans For When Your Parents Are Super Old And In Need

I've been thinking more and more about elder care and the crisis we have when it comes to figuring out what to do with all these old ass people!

I've seen it play out in multiple families and it never turns out great (like many crappy situations.) Elderly people can get meaner than ever, show signs of Alzheimers/dementia, start wandering at night, etc. And then putting them in a nice home is not an option for most people since those places can cost 5k-15k per month. Then when the children are left to be caretakers it usually falls on one child, usually a girl, and she basically gets to wither away along with the parent with little to no emotional or financial support. But what's the other option? Let them stew in their filth living alone as they lose their motor skills and pretend you don't see it? It's scary, people are living so much longer and you can really end up old as hell at 85 but still needing 10-20 years of very expensive hands on medical care just to keep you from suffering.

But to be candid I do not think I could manage full on caretaking for my parent or allow my children to be my sole caretaker. If medical euthanasia was legal in the US I'd probably send myself home to the king once a steep mental/bodily decline was noted. I don't want to sit around for 20 years unable to care for myself as much as I wouldn't want my kids to sit around for 20 years wiping my butt but I'm sure plenty of parents have said this and once they realized there wasn't enough money for a caretaker they changed their tune.

So yeah, to those of you that have gone through it, how did you manage it? And for everyone else, what's your plan, if any?