I've taken the same call for years. It comes a lot more often now. Yet somehow, I still wasn’t ready.

About the author: Rebecca A. Carter is a Principal at Friedman, Framme & Thrush, P.A.

Two calls came in this week. Different people. Same call.

First one was a daughter, mid-forties, calling from the ICU. Her mom got moved that afternoon and the doctors needed somebody who could legally make a decision. Twenty minutes before she called me, somebody told her that her mom never signed a healthcare power of attorney. She found out she didn't have it at the exact second she needed it. She was crying before she got two sentences out.

Second one was a son, fifties, standing in the kitchen he grew up in. His mom fell the night before. She's home now, but he'd spent the morning looking around and doing the math. The stairs she can't really handle anymore. The stove she's left on twice this month. A counter full of pill bottles and nobody keeping track. His sister's four states away. He called a lawyer because he didn't know who else to call, which tells you how lost he was.

Different week, different family, different parent.

Same call.

I've been doing this work and practicing law more than two decades. I changed the details in those two stories so I'm not putting anybody's business out there, but they're the calls our firm get now, and more often than ever.

Yet somehow, I was not ready last year when my mother began to experience cognitive decline. I was not ready to hear a doctor diagnose early Alzheimer’s.  And I will admit that as much as I counsel and encourage others on planning ahead, and to have General Power of Attorney and Health Care Powers of Attorney in place, I had not had those conversations with my own family.  As a seasoned lawyer, this is embarrassing to admit. As a human, I understand it.  I am a busy mom with two teenagers, and a daughter with six aging parents in my orbit; as both my parents have remarried and my husband’s parents.  How lucky am I to have all these amazing people in my life, I know. But the worry and responsibility is overwhelming.

It's not just me

Every elder law attorney I know is seeing it. Most of my middle-aged friends are in similar boats. The morning shows and magazines have been running these same stories for a couple years now, mostly sad anecdotes and not much underneath them. A family goes broke taking in a parent. A daughter quits her job because there's nobody else to do it. The stories are true. What they leave out is the part I deal with, which is what actually has to happen, legally, when a parent can't run their own life anymore.

LegalShield's numbers say the same thing. Across its network, calls about elder care and the legal mess that comes with it have more than doubled since 2022. It's the biggest single category they handle now.  Something changed. And it's not slowing down.

Why it's hitting this generation so hard

It comes down to a few things that all landed at the same time.

The Boomers are the biggest older generation this country's ever had. They're also living longer than anybody before them, which sounds like good news right up until you're the one helping. Caring for a parent used to be a couple years. Now it can run ten, maybe even fifteen years. That's not a sprint. That's a second job that lasts a decade.

And the adult kids stuck doing it have it harder than their parents did. Fewer brothers and sisters to split the work. They live a plane ride away instead of across town. Both of them work, and a lot of them work jobs where you can't just duck out to take a call from the doctor. Hourly. Shift work. Leave early and it comes out of your check. On top of that, plenty of them still have kids at home, sometimes kids in college costing them money. Your grandmother had six kids and a sister down the street. You've got a brother in Phoenix who calls on Sundays.

So the biggest older generation in history is leaning on the smallest, most spread-out, most maxed-out bunch of caregivers we've ever had. The math doesn't work. And every year it gets worse.

What it actually costs

Money matters, but that’s not the most expensive part.  There are two other parts that cost the most.

The first one's emotional, and it's brutal. You're watching your parent’s world get smaller, while watching your children’s world get bigger. You're losing somebody who's sitting right there in front of you. Reality hits you like truck. It did for me.  With my mother’s diagnosis, I suddenly realized that the person who has helped me navigate every difficult step in my life, will not be able to help me navigate what may be my most difficult step, losing her.  I wasn’t ready to consider this. I am still not.

Most folks say the same thing. The grief is the hardest part. The kind that doesn't have a name yet, because your parent's still alive.  And this grief, like all grief, is not processed in a straight line. It’s ups and downs and intertwined with daily life.

The second cost is mental. Doctors, money calculation, the insurance runaround, the family arguments, all of it stacked on top of a full-time job and parenting own children. You're making more big decisions in a week than your boss makes in a month, and you're doing it on no sleep. It wears people down to nothing.

Then there's the money. Care costs more every year, way faster than paychecks go up. Most families pay out of their own pocket while they're losing income on the other end, cutting hours or stepping back at work. LegalShield asked more than a thousand working people who're caring for a parent. About one in four said they've thought hard about quitting over it. One in five passed on a promotion. That's retirement they're not saving, raises they're not taking, years of earning they don't get back.

And under all of it is the legal stuff almost nobody's handled. Most families I see don't have a will, don't have a power of attorney, don't have a healthcare directive when the bad day comes. Cost and paperwork are the easy part. Yet, I am not judging. It's the talk that stops people. Sitting your own mother down to bring up dying is the hardest thing in this whole process.  I see it daily in others, and in myself.

What to do this week

That daughter in the ICU? She called me because nobody ever just asked her mom, plain and simple, who she'd want making her medical calls if she couldn't make them herself. The stroke was the trigger. The conversation that never happened was the real problem.

So have it. Before you need it.

Steal this if you want.

“Mom, if something happened tomorrow and you couldn't speak for yourself, who'd you want making the call? I just want to make sure it's written down, and that it's the right person.”

Ask it in the car. Ask it on the phone. Ask it while you're doing the dishes. Don't make it a sit-down with everybody staring at each other. That just makes it harder.

If she says she doesn't want to talk about it, fine. You planted it. Bring it up again in a couple weeks.

If she says anything else, write it down. That's your starting point for everything else.

• Financial power of attorney. Who handles the money if she can't.
• Healthcare directive. What kind of care she wants when she can't tell you.
• Medicaid planning. How a family pays for years of care without losing the house.
• The nursing home/assisted living decision. When, where, and who makes the call.

Each one's its own conversation. They all start with that first answer.

And somewhere down the line, those conversations turn into real paperwork, and that's where you want a lawyer. A power of attorney that's worded wrong or signed too late falls apart right when your family's counting on it. Start it at your kitchen table. Just let somebody who does this for a living finish it right.

One more thing before you go

You're not behind. Give yourself grace. You're doing something most families never get around to, which is reading this on your phone, late, while there's still time to actually do something about it. This is not an easy road. Everyone’s situation is unique. We don’t know what the future holds, and we cannot control most of it.  However, this is a step you can take, and I hope you do.

Start one conversation this week. Just one.

Quick note. LegalShield just teamed up with Care.com to bring senior care planning to members on its National Enhanced Plan for 2027. Ask your HR rep if your employer offers LegalShield and Care.com benefits.