Alright Mom and Dad, it's time to talk -- about your finances.
Cameron Huddleston, author of “Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances,” remembers the birds-and-the-bees talk she had as a child with her mother. Huddleston says she’d give her mom a D at best because the “talk” was a single sentence saying that a man and woman lie together and “make love.”
A few years later, when she started having signs of memory loss, I knew I had to meet quickly with her attorney to update her will and to get power of attorney. I knew she had to be mentally competent to sign them and without them I wouldn’t have been able to step in to make health care and financial decisions for her. She was still competent enough, so she did.
Why does it matter whether adult children talk with their parents about the parents’ finances? What happens if they don’t? Or they may not be doing a good job managing their finances. I’m not saying it’s your job to step in and tell them what to do. But if you see that their mismanagement of finances will affect you, it could be to your benefit to try to have conversations to offer suggestions to get them back on track so they don’t jeopardize your financial well-being.
If they say: ‘It’s none of your business,’ you can respectfully respond: ‘It could be some of my business one day if you ever need my help. And as your child, I want to be able to help you. I want to care for you in the same way you cared for me when I was growing up. I feel I owe it to you.’I think when most parents hear that, they will open up. Hopefully.Yes. They may think that. Say: ‘I don’t care what I’ll be getting.
And you don’t want to give parents ultimatums, like: ‘Mom, Dad, if you don’t tell me details of your finances, I won’t take care of you if you need it.’ That’s not going to work. They’re going to say: ‘Fine, I don’t need your help.’ And then you might say: ‘I would like to help you set up automatic bill paying and online banking.’ I know some older adults can be reluctant and see this as risky, but explain that it’s a safeguard and they can check on these bills every day.
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