Taking Care of Mom and Dad: Lifestyle Adjustments Conclusion

Attitudes are subjective. The challenge to being with family members who share your attitudes about money is that attitudes are subjective things. What your family considers a healthy disdain for materialism, you may see as irresponsibility. Of course, if you're in charge of the money, you can enforce your opinions...financially. But lording over family members is risky; you can make enemies of the people closest to you.

You probably inherited some of your attitudes about money from your parents -- but these attitudes may have changed from your own experience. By the time you need to take stock of your parents' financial situation and their lifestyle, you and your parents may stand on opposite poles. You have ideas about what they should do with their money and they have their own ideas.

Finding the balance can be hard. As we mentioned in the first half of this chapter, it's up to you to distinguish between what's good for you and what's good for your parents. So long as they remain financially stable and afloat, allow them the room to make some of their own decisions...or at least try to include them the best you can in any decisions you enforce upon them. Only then will you be able to manage the money issues and the emotional issues gracefully and well.