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Your children started out totally dependent on you. After years of your parenting, they learned to take care of themselves. By now, they might have rewarded you with grandchildren, your family's next generation on the long path to independence.
Your grown-up children can give a second reward that is yours for the asking: to be the adult children you can turn to for help. Their responses will be as distinct as their personalities. Your daughter the accountant would be a pro at your finances but she may rely on her brother the nurse practitioner for your hands-on care. Some middle-aged children wrestle with the reality that mom needs a wheelchair now or that dad doesn't remember their names. They may rely on their less-conflicted siblings to tend to the parents.
The Fourth Commandment -- the first that mentions a duty to anyone besides God -- exhorts your children to honor you. St. Paul wrote that honoring parents includes a "return of duty" to one's parents. (1 Timothy 5:4). A child's honor of her parents extends to helping them in their old age.
One of the simplest ways your child can honor you is to speak on your behalf to your physicians. You can name a son or daughter as the health care agent who makes your medical decisions when you can't speak for yourself. Years ago you may have signed a health care directive naming your spouse as your agent. If you both are slower at making decisions than you once were, you ought to have a son or daughter replace your spouse as your agent. You may also have signed a health care directive, also called a living will. This is your set of guidelines for your agent. If it's been years since you talked with your agent, initiate a new conversation about the care you do and don't want. This talk will make it easier for your agent to face weighty decisions that await him. He won't regret that he didn't recognize the changes in your priorities as you aged.
Letting your child speak for you to your physician might be easier than giving her control over your finances. Control of your money can amount to control of your freedom. You don't need to surrender your autonomy while you're doing fine on your own. But it's prudent, while you're still in your stride, to line up an agent to manage your finances in the future. Here in Massachusetts, you can do this with a springing durable power of attorney. This document, when duly signed, notarized, and witnessed, designates your agent years before it's time to yield your fiscal autonomy. It states that she can't take control until your physician writes a letter that you can no longer manage your finances.
You might also recruit one of your children if you draft a revocable trust. This is a tool for managing your assets during and after your lifetime. You transfer something you own to the trust, which becomes the new owner of whatever you put in the trust. Each trust has a manager, the trustee. Typically, you are the initial trustee, free to manage the property or business in the trust as you please. You will plan ahead for your physician to write a letter when you lose the capacity to manage your affairs. Then your successor trustee, perhaps one of your children, will take over. She must follow the directions you wrote in the trust. These directions name the relatives or charities that will ultimately receive your assets.
Talk to an elder law or estate planning attorney about a springing durable power of attorney and a trust. Neither document renders you powerless. On the contrary, each extends your authority through your chosen agent or trustee. But first you need to hear that your son and daughter will be ready to act on your behalf. They're waiting for you to ask.
PHILIP ARCIDIACONO, ESQ., IS THE PRINCIPAL OF ARCHDEACON LAW ASSOCIATES, A LAW FIRM IN CONCORD AND LUNENBURG, MASSACHUSETTS, SPECIALIZING IN ELDER LAW AND ESTATE PLANNING. HE CAN BE REACHED AT PA@ARCHDEACONLAW.COM. THE FIRM'S WEBSITE IS WWW.ARCHDEACONLAW.COM.