It’s Time for This Family Discussion

By Wells Fargo AdvisorsSubmitted Content
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If the prospect of asking your aging parents about the way they handle their household finances — or how they would feel about moving to a nursing home — fills you with apprehension, you are not alone. However, it’s the kind of conversation you can’t afford to delay indefinitely. As your parents get older, it’s critical to sit down with them and talk about their health and financial well-being — before urgent decisions are forced on you.

“The consequence of not having these discussions is that you aren’t prepared to make sound medical and financial choices when Mom or Dad has an emergency,” says Deborah Eickhoff, Vice President of Wells Fargo Advisors’ high-net-worth planning group.

Fortunately, there are ways to make this process easier. The most important is to plan ahead. Starting these discussions early and revisiting them regularly will help you and your family handle lifestyle-changing issues concerning your parents.
 

How to start the conversation

If only there was a uniformly effortless way to speak to Mom and Dad about their health and finances. No such protocol exists, but you might broach the topic around the time the older parent turns 70, Eickhoff recommends.
“Once you’ve started the dialogue, you’ll have laid the groundwork to continue it in the future,” she says, “And 70 is still a relatively young age to begin having these talks.”

On the medical side, you might ask your parents what they would like to happen if their health starts to fail. Do they want to stay in their home, or are they open to moving to an assisted living or long-term care facility? If acute care becomes necessary, is there a hospital they prefer? How much medical intervention do they want if their condition becomes dire? How would they like to handle end-of-life issues? The answers to these questions will play a critical role in helping you create a realistic and well-thought-out plan.

Conversations about finances can be just as challenging, especially for families not used to discussing money. At some point, parents may need help with day-to-day financial tasks such as paying bills and balancing the checkbook, or with larger issues like investing. It’s important to clearly understand your parents’ goals for their wealth, from being able to afford the retirement lifestyle they envision to supporting charities they care about.


Having these discussions as early as possible helps establish the rationale for estate planning decisions, Eickhoff notes.  For example, if the parents have spent more on one child’s education or provided funds to help start a business, they might decide to compensate the other siblings later on with larger shares of the estate.

“This is a hard discussion for parents to have with their kids,” says Eickhoff. “But if they don’t have it while they’re alive, they risk having their children always wonder why they made certain decisions about their assets.”

What to look for

Parents are not likely to volunteer that they need help, so it’s up to their children to watch for red flags—uncharacteristic difficulty performing daily chores or keeping track of household finances, for example. Discreetness and sensitivity are essential. One way to monitor your parents’ approach to the household finances is to suggest going through a routine chore together during one of your regular visits.

“You might say, ‘Mom, I’ll be over next Saturday. Let’s just pay the bills together,’” Eickhoff suggests. “If your mother appears to be struggling to manage that process, offer to take it off her hands.”

If you have siblings, open communication can foster cohesion and make handling the issues a lot easier, even if you live in different parts of the country. Since the burden of care can easily land on the shoulders of the child who lives closest to the parents, it’s important that the others pitch in. This might mean picking up the bill for housecleaning or in-home medical care, or making regular weekend visits to look after Mom or Dad and give the caretaker sibling a break.

Addressing medical and financial issues early can forestall problems later on as well as help maintain family harmony. “If you’re trying to start those conversations while your parents’ health is fragile, that’s a real challenge for everybody,” says Eickhoff. “But knowing what to expect from each other can give everyone in the family better knowledge of expectations.”

This article was written by Wells Fargo Advisors and provided courtesy of Jonathan Buoni in Northampton, MA at 413-585-1432. Investments in securities and insurance products are: NOT FDIC-INSURED/NOT BANK-GUARANTEED/MAY LOSE VALUE Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC, Member SIPC, is a registered broker-dealer and a separate non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. ©2013 Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC.  All rights reserved.


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Simon's Rock Awarded Freedom to Read Grant

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Bard College at Simon's Rock was awarded a Freedom to Read Grant by the Newburger Schwartz Family Foundation. 
 
The grant was awarded to support the Alumni Library and Bard Queer Leadership Project in building a more robust collection of queer scholarship, starting a Queer Book Club, and hosting Drag Story Time events in partnership with Drag Story Hour of the Berkshires.
 
According to a press release:
 
In response to current educational threats with book bans affecting schools and libraries across the country and further proposed legislation against LGBTQ+ people's access to basic rights and education, Simon's Rock is actively seeking to create inclusive and equitable spaces for queer individuals. 
 
The Bard Queer Leadership Project and Alumni Library will utilize the grant funding to expand the library's current collection of queer books in order to fully enable the longevity of the Queer Book Club and the Bard Queer Leadership Project. The Queer Book Club will be an intergenerational space, open to local middle school students through rainbow seniors and will partner with local community organizations, to discuss queer books and learn about LGBTQ+ issues and experiences. Bard Queer Leadership Project students will eventually help lead this initiative as part of their leadership project training. 
 
The Queer Book Club will host their first meeting on April 6 at 3:00 p.m. at the Alumni Library, with following meetings on April 27 and May 11. This semester, the selected books are "Obie is Man Enough" and "He/She/They," both by Schuyler Bailar, inspirational speaker and first openly transgender NCAA Division swimmer, who was a guest speaker in the inaugural Queer Leaders Vision Forum in fall 2023 at Simon's Rock. Schuyler Bailar will return to campus for a book signing and pool party at the Kilpatrick Athletic Center on April 19 at 7:00 p.m. Participants in the Queer Book Club will receive a free copy of either book of their choice. 
 
The first Drag Story Time will be on Saturday, March 30 at 2:00 p.m. at the Simon's Rock Alumni Library and is open to all LGBTQ+ affirming individuals. The event is in partnership with Drag Story Hour of the Berkshires with local drag queens JV and Poppy DaBubbly. The second Drag Story Time will be Saturday, April 27 with drag queen Poppy DaBubbly and drag king Sativo Green.
 
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