• partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    This is going to be even worse if/when Musk and trump dismantle Social Security. The adult middle class will collapse entirely when their seniors will lose their homes and food, and their children are still at home because they can’t afford to live on their own.

    Couple this with smaller family sizes, this could mean two single child adults might have to support four living senior citizens (both sets of parents) while also raising children of their own.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      This is called the sandwich generation (when you have to take care of both adults and kids on your own). It’s a thing!

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I fucking feel this.

      I’m in a situation where in my family I’m the one who’s going to be taking care of my parents as they get older because my only sibling (older) is entirely unreliable and financially unstable.

      Then my fiance is ALSO being expected to take up that responsibility because all her siblings went and had 2-4 kids and “can’t afford” or “won’t have time” to help take care of her mother who is already aging.

      So we’re having to plan ahead as 25 and 30 year olds to be able to help and support 3 elders. This basically defaults us to not being able to have kids.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        My girlfriend is taking care of her parents with her father having a couple of weeks to live and her mother being so anxious that she can’t be trusted to take care of him (give him morphine, start preparing a second dose thinking she didn’t give him his dose yet, change his fentanyl patch and doesn’t remove the old one)… Her sisters are pretty much nowhere to be found, as if their boyfriends were unable to take care of the kids for one fucking evening.

        They’ll let their father die a painful death without seeing him, but at least they will have enjoyed the last few days of the ski season!

        • BigFig@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Fuck thats grim. I assume home nursing is not a financial possibility? I’m really sorry to hear about yours and hers situation.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Then my fiance is ALSO being expected to take up that responsibility because all her siblings went and had 2-4 kids and “can’t afford” or “won’t have time” to help take care of her mother who is already aging.

        Your fiance’s siblings are stupid for turning down the free live-in childcare.

        • BigFig@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          An elderly person verging on disabled and one day probably will be, also with what looks like developing early onset dementia probably doesn’t make for good childcare

      • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        Or like, you could just have kids. Don’t Darwin yourself over the stupidity of others

    • balssh@lemm.ee
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      8 hours ago

      You are very optimist people will still have kids in this situation.