Tag Archives: parents

A Parent’s Act of Love

Leave a reply

Psychiatrists have long equated the reluctance to write a will, prepare an advance directive or estate plan, with fear of dying.

Who wants to think about planning for death? We’d rather do just about anything else. However, we must confront our mortality. We can’t afford to have illusions that it won’t happen to us. We have to face giving up our possessions and power. We have to deal with uncomfortable subjects like aging, illness, death, inheritance and a host of other things we’ve managed to avoid thinking about.

Having the ‘money conversation’ is rarely ‘just about money’. It’s also about family dynamics, mistakes, regrets, guilt, and a host of other issues. Children feel morbid, greedy and intrusive asking their parents questions about money and death. The parents don’t want to start conversations about ‘touchy’ subjects either. The result – people procrastinate, hoping for the best. Hope is not a strategy. It’s a procrastination tool and most often, it doesn’t work.

The burden of grief for children when a parent dies is heavy enough without adding financial confusion to the mix. It’s truly an act of love for parents to get their affairs in order.

Go to http://www.moneyloveandlegacy.com Check out the guide  for opening the conversations that matter between parents and children. Follow the check lists for what parents need to put in place so children aren’t burdened with a financial and legal mess after parents die.

Sharing the Final Journey with his Mom

Leave a reply
Whether you think tweeting from a hospital bed is an invasion of privacy or not, this journey of a son holding his mother’s hand during her final journey is heartfelt and moving.

NPR’s Scott Simon Tweets From His Mother’s Hospital Bedside

ByDavid Wessel

Will O’Leary
NPR’s Scott Simon

Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition, is tweeting from the hospital bedside of his mother, Patricia Lyons Simon Newman Gilband, as she approaches death — and has drawn 1.2 million followers to a moving, occasionally funny and very 21st century chronicle of one of life’s universal experiences, the death of a parent.

One Tweet posted on his feed reads “I am getting a life’s lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU. We never stop learning from our mothers, do we?”

I just realized: she once had to let me go into the big wide world. Now I have to let her go the same way.

— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 28, 2013

ICU seems to be staffed by good, smart young docs who think they know everything, and wise RN’s who really do.
— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 28, 2013

When my mother woke briefly I sang her My Best Girl. She replied w/ You Are the Sunshine of My Life. Broadway in the ICU.

— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 28, 2013

If we only truly realized how little time we have..,
— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 28, 2013

Mother asks, “Will this go on forever?” She means pain, dread. “No.” She says, “But we’ll go on forever. You & me.” Yes.

— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 28, 2013

Tried to buy coffee for family w/ a mother in ICU too. Barista overheard, refused my card. “Your money’s no good here.”
— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 27, 2013

What is the idea behind deep fried onion rings in a hospital cafeteria?

— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 26, 2013

I am getting a life’s lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU. We never stop learning from our mothers, do we?

— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 25, 2013

 

No Flowers for Mother’s Day

Leave a reply

Legions of adult children spend thousands dollars and hours on the therapist’s couch, reviewing, ruminating and regurgitating things their parents did or didn’t do.

I’m not including parents here who were intentionally abusive, either physically, verbally, sexually or emotionally. I’m talking about well meaning parents who had the best intentions, did the best they could, yet still get blamed for the things that go wrong in the life of their adult child.

Unfortunately, parent blaming has a willing ally in therapy circles. In an unscientific profession that can only speculate about cause and outcome, assigning blame to parents is easy, irresponsible and widespread. The 50 minute hour does not include the parents, so the  therapist gets a one-sided view of people who never get the chance to respond.

It requires a truly ethical therapist to say to a client  ” I haven’t met your parents, but isn’t it possible they did the best they could? It’s time for you to take responsibility for your role in the relationship. After all, you’re an adult now.”

To all you garden variety mothers who tried your best and it wasn’t good enough, you who won’t be hearing from your children this Mother’s Day, I can’t send you flowers, but rest assured that you’re not alone.

 

Children and Grandchildren Not Entitled to Inheritance

Leave a reply

In her will, Leona Helmsley, NY hotel magnate, left $12 million dollars for the care of her dog. She left nothing to two of her four grandchildren, saying ‘the reasons are known to them’.

Even though Helmsley was a philanthropist, bequeathing millions of dollars to charitable organizations, she took a stand when it came to rewarding behavior she didn’t like. Her thinking may have been simple:  “My dog loves me, is good to me, I feel appreciated and loved. Two of my grandchildren treat me badly. They don’t deserve anything. I’ll leave money for the other two.”

There is no law requiring parents to leave their children or grandchildren an inheritance. Blood lines don’t apply in the U.S. or England, the only two countries that practice the legal concept of  ‘testamentary freedom’  – the right to designate who will inherit their estate.

That means children and grandchildren are not automatically entitled to any portion of their parents’ or grandparents’ estate. They receive an inheritance because parents choose to leave it to them. Inheritance lies not in the genes, but in the heart. It’s all about the quality of relationship, not family ties.