Moving has a positive impact on the whole family

By Laura Hipshire
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

AARP states, “Caring for aging relatives is on the rise.”

An AARP study reveals that “the number of American households where residents care for aging relatives has more than tripled during the past decade, from 7 million to 22.4 million.” The report continues: “The growing number is having reverberations in marriages, savings accounts, and workplaces, as people try to manage their parents’ lives without losing control of their own. It’s also hurting businesses as workers interrupt their workday, call in sick, or quit their jobs to tend to their parents.”

It is studies like these that emphasize the need for families to make proactive decisions about housing and other important issues, eliminating the need for a crisis in the future.

Couple makes ‘the right move’
Barbara Birmingham, who moved to Fox Run with her husband, Roy, from Livonia, says she didn’t have a hard time leaving her home even after 44 years of living there. “We decided that this was a move that we were going to make the best of and going to enjoy,” says Barbara. “We didn’t find it difficult at all to leave.”

“Right now you could not pay me to go back and live in a house with all of the things you have to do. There’s not time to do that. There’s too much to do that’s fun, and we have fun here.”

Many children are caring for their parents
A survey conducted by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving found that one in four homes provided some type of care for people older than 50. Responsibility for such help usually fell to one person, who performed it for an average of 18 hours a week for more than four years. Some people care for their parents for 20 years — longer than the caretakers spent raising their children.