A recent article in the New York Times explored the status of the elderly and the care they receive from their adult children. According to a study done by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, nearly 1 out of 5 adult children will need to provide care for an aging parent. While this burden falls on the shoulders of many, it seems that more often than not it is the daughters who end up with the responsibility of taking care of their elderly parents.
This burden is now potentially being compounded by a House republican proposal to slash the Medicaid funding which helps pay for the desperately needed help with caregiving duties, forcing more adult children to take on the responsibilities themselves. As a result, the already significant stresses on adult children to provide care for their elderly parents would be come, as the article puts it, “extreme”.