Attitudes about the obligation to provide care for an aging parent in failing health vary. In some families, there is an unspoken expectation that it is the daughter’s job to provide this care, despite the fact that there is no legal obligation for any particular person to do so. Rarely does the son or son-in-law of the elder step in and volunteer to do the work. There are exceptions, but most caregivers are women in these situations.
Here at AgingParents.com, where we consult with families, we see the daughter or daughter-in-law simply taking leadership and stepping in to do the job of caregiving, without being asked. Conflicts arise after a time, particularly when the job goes from part time to around the clock as the aging parent’s health declines over time. The caregiving daughter asks for help from other family members and doesn’t get it. She gets resentful. Such situations worsen when the non-participants criticize the caregiver over what she is doing or not doing. The issue of money is entangled in the resentment. Some caregivers in families leave their paid jobs to take care of an aging parent.
Case Study
Faithful Daughter (FD), who lived in the same general area as her ailing mother, moved in to care for the mom as she grew frail and ill. FD was a nurse who was happily employed before the need to care for mom arose. FD eventually had to quit her full-time job to become mom’s caregiver. She lived with mom, who paid the rent and most basic necessities, but did not give any other support. FD had no income. Mom had sufficient left in her savings to support FD, but FD did not know how long mom would last so she just took the bare minimum for groceries and utilities, etc. from mom’s account. FD was also the appointed person on mom’s Durable Power of Attorney, so she had control over mom’s funds.
The Question of Pay
As mom grew closer to her end of life, FD calculated a modest “salary” for the two years she had spent caring for her mother. She set that money aside. She intended to pay herself back after mom’s passing, so she could start fresh on her own. She was very transparent about this. But her two siblings, who had not lifted a finger to help during their mother’s last illness, went ballistic. They threatened FD, accused her of financial misdeeds, told her she had no right to take any money and that it was “her job” to care for their mother.
The Issue
In this case, the non-participant siblings assumed that they had a right to have their sister, FD to take care of their mom without any compensation. But their beliefs had no legal basis, nor did they have any authority to impose their will upon their sister. She had voluntarily quit her job to do this work. No one had discussed whether she should get paid or not. That was the first mistake that led to the conflict. Transparency from the outset would have helped. The legal issue was whether FD’s caregiving work had a value, which of course, it did. To pay a caregiver to do even part of what FD did would have cost about four times the modest salary FD had set aside to take from mom’s estate to compensate herself.
Legal Authority
FD was appointed to manage the mom’s finances during her lifetime and was also appointed as the executor of her estate. FD had the responsibility to distribute the cash left in mom’s account as required first. That meant paying taxes and any debts of the estate first. There were sufficient funds to give each sibling an inheritance after the estate obligations were met. FD’s plan to take out a modest salary for her work from that remaining cash was what the siblings were angry about. It meant less for them.
The Advice
We counseled FD that she had every right to pay herself that salary from the estate funds left. There is no legal requirement that when a person chooses to care for an aging loved one, quitting a job to do so, that they have to do it for free. The concept is about fairness and placing a value on caregiving work. FD doubted that any sibling was going to go to court to test this out, as it would cost too much to make it worth the fight. So she decided to go ahead with her plan to compensate herself.
The Takeaways
If the need arises, we encourage every family member to discuss the prospect of a family caregiver doing this often-difficult job for an aging parent. Daughters and daughters-in-law are not automatically forced to do the job because they are female. If there are no females in the role, it is not automatically the obligation of any adult child nearby to take on the responsibility. And every family member who faces this kind of need for the aging parent should recognize that caregiving is work that does have a dollar value.
Talking about it can reveal everyone’s expectations and allow family to air them. For the person who chooses to do the caregiving, know that no one is legally required to work for free, particularly when there is enough in the estate to allow payment for the work. Greed can rear its ugly head in these times. Making agreements among family members at the outset is far better than waiting until the elder nears end of life or passes, to tell siblings that one should be paid for this work.
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