My parents keep dropping hints that they need us to help with retirement – will I have to help them?

A caller to the Dave Ramsey Show recently expressed concerns about her parents’ plans — or lack thereof — for retirement. The caller explained that her dad is in his 80s but still working full time, her mom has never worked, and they do not appear to have any money saved to support them in retirement. She told Dave that she is very concerned that “we’re starting to get this feeling that they’re expecting us to take care of them at some point.”

While the caller has been following Ramsey’s plan and is debt-free except for her mortgage, she said she does not have the financial bandwidth to offer financial support to her mom and dad. She wanted Dave’s opinion on what to do and whether or not she was obligated to offer this type of aid. 

Kids don’t have to be their parents’ financial plan

The caller explained to Ramsey that she was concerned she should be doing more for her parents because of the biblical mandate to honor your mother and father — but Ramsey headed this idea off at the pass and explained that honoring them means honoring their position as your parents, not writing them checks. 

Instead, Ramsey suggested that she have an open and honest conversation with her parents, asking them what their plans are and making clear that she is not their plan. The caller also said she wasn’t comfortable with her mother moving in if her father died first, which is a plan her mother has expressed in the past. Ramsey said this needs to be addressed as well.

The reality is that the caller’s parents waited far too long to begin preparing for a secure future, but that should not become their daughter’s problem. Otherwise, their daughter’s efforts to build her own success could be derailed. “We can honor them,” Ramsey said of the caller’s parents. “It doesn’t require us to give them money.”

How to help aging parents who are unprepared for retirement

If the caller was in a financial position to offer some assistance, she could choose to provide a bit of financial support for her mom and dad. Even if she could afford this, though, it’s not always a good idea to bail out parents who didn’t prepare — at least not without working with them to make lifestyle changes that enable them to preserve the assets they do have. 

Since the caller can’t offer financial support, though, what she can do is offer advice. Ramsey told her to work with them on coming up with a solution to their lack of retirement preparedness. For example, the caller explained her dad makes $100K a year so Ramsey urged her to help him figure out how to invest some of that money.

Ramsey also said that she may need to begin preparing her mother for the fact that if her dad dies first, her mother will likely have to move out of their shared financial home into a condo she can afford to buy with cash and pay for with Social Security benefits. 

There are plenty of ways to work with parents to create a financial plan, and even to look into things like government benefits such as Supplemental Security Income. Offering this kind of assistance will allow the caller and others like her to help out struggling parents without giving up their own financial security to do it. 

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