Yet Ms. Milgram-Bossong e-mailed me a few weeks back to say, “I am frightened, horrified in fact, of the near future.” The reason: She’s an only child.
“There could be some agonizing times ahead, and I’m facing it alone,” she said when I called. Research shows that even when there are several adult children, just one (a daughter, usually) emerges as the so-called primary caregiver and handles the bulk of her parents’ care. But Ms. Milgram-Bossong finds that minor consolation.
“Even if I had a sibling in California, I’d have someone to talk to. I have no one to bounce ideas off, to think about what I’m not thinking about,” she said. Widowed in her 50s with no children, she’s determined to do well by her parents when they need her, but the prospect keeps her awake nights.
Regina Milgram-Bossong, meet Margaret Reiss, 48, an insurance broker in San Francisco. Ms. Reiss knows that her parents, living independently in Florida, will need help before very long. Her father is still strong at 90, but becoming more forgetful; her mother, 94, is mentally sharp but physically very frail. “I’d like to talk and think about these decisions before we need to make them,” Ms. Reiss told me.
But having a brother in California and a sister in Maryland, both older, hasn’t helped. “We’re not on the same page,” she lamented.
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