Manage my parents

Question

My parents are approaching their golden years. Is how to manage your parents in scope on this site?

There is a message on what I have tried to meet quality standards. It is just a simple question. I have not tried anything.

An answer of NO is fine. I am just asking.

I would need to move back home to manage their affairs and provide care. Basically there are a couple issues going on. One is they have some properties and offered me to say in one but it requires work. I would need to put money in it and asked they give me first dibs on that house. They declined. That is not a good question for the site and not much I can do about it. The other question is how to get preferences from them on health decisions and get power of attorney. They are not ready to articulate but also not willing to sign over power of attorney.

Answer 1

Based on our Help Page, I would say a general no, crystallised in this line:

Parenting Stack Exchange is for parents, grandparents, nannies and others who care for children

And while I don't wish this on anyone, I don't think we have really looked at whether or not this site can give advice on caring for parents who have, for whatever reason, reverted in any way towards childhood.

Answer 2

I would say maybe. We've taken many questions from children (either adults or otherwise) with regards to dealing with their parents. However, the key aspect of those questions is that the parent-child relationship has to be integral to those questions. IE. if that relationship was not there, the question would be totally different.

So I believe a good litmus test would be if you can swap out your parents for two other random adults and the problem doesn't change a lot, then it doesn't belong here (it might work on Interpersonal.SE). If swapping changes the whole story into a different problem, it's probably a good fit here.

Answer 3

Thanks for asking. We do accept a lot of questions on problems with parents, but they are usually of an interpersonal matter, such as boundary-setting, etc. I.e., issues that affect a parent-child interactions negatively.

If the question is a list-type question (pros and cons), a "shopping-assistance" kind of question ("what is the best kind of"...), or primarily opinion based ("should I or shouldn't I", those are off-topic to begin with.

My guess is that such questions would be off topic.