Helping a parent
You're not the one retiring — but you're the one making sure it goes well. A path through the decisions that matter most.
This page is for you — the adult child, the person watching a parent approach or enter retirement and trying to figure out how to help. Maybe you’ve already had some of the important conversations. Maybe you haven’t started yet. Maybe there isn’t a crisis, just a low-grade awareness that things should probably be more organized than they are.
You don’t need to have it all figured out. Most families don’t. What matters is getting the key things in place before they’re urgently needed — because the conversations that are hard to have now become significantly harder in the middle of a health event.
Start here.
In a hurry? Start with the checklist
The adult-child checklist: what to have in place before it’s urgent is a printable, quick-reference version of everything below — the conversations, the documents, and the signs it may be time to move faster. Good for a first pass, or for keeping nearby once you’ve started.
The essential starting point
1. The conversations — and how to have them
Most of the practical work flows from conversations that feel hard to start: about money, about wishes, about what happens if something goes wrong. The difficulty is real, but it’s manageable. The key is leading with curiosity and your own need for information rather than concern about a parent’s situation.
Helping a parent plan retirement: a guide for adult children is the most complete resource we have for this role — covering the conversations, the documents that need to exist, the financial questions worth understanding, what to do when a parent won’t engage, and how to protect your own finances and wellbeing in the middle of all of it.
The things that should be in place
2. Healthcare: what’s covered and where the gaps are
Medicare covers far less than most people assume — particularly dental, vision, hearing, and long-term care. Understanding what a parent’s healthcare coverage actually looks like, and where the meaningful gaps are, is foundational to any other planning.
Healthcare in retirement: what Medicare covers, what it doesn’t, and what that gap actually costs covers Medicare’s structure, its limits, and what the total healthcare cost picture typically looks like for a retiree.
3. Long-term care: the gap nobody plans for
About 70% of people over 65 will need some form of long-term care. Medicare covers very little of it. Yet roughly 80% of Americans have no plan to fund it. If a parent doesn’t have a plan — insurance, savings set aside, or a Medicaid planning conversation with an elder law attorney — this is the highest-urgency gap to address, particularly because the options narrow significantly with age and declining health.
Long-term care: the retirement cost nobody plans for explains what care costs, what the funding options are, and why timing matters more than most people realize.
4. Social connection — for them, not just the logistics
The practical and financial planning often gets all the attention. But a parent’s wellbeing in retirement is shaped as much by who they see and what gives their days meaning as by whether the documents are in order. The loneliness that catches many new retirees off guard is real, and it’s preventable with some intentionality.
Building your social life after work: it doesn’t happen by accident is written for the person doing the retiring — worth sharing with a parent who’s recently left work or is approaching it.
5. If siblings or other family are sharing this
When more than one person is involved, the work tends to default silently to whoever’s closest or most available — unless someone names the division of labor out loud first.
Who handles what: coordinating with siblings without the resentment covers how to split the work by category rather than by hours, and what to do if the load is already landing unevenly.
6. If a move is part of the picture
If a parent is considering relocating in retirement — whether to reduce costs, get closer to family, or change climates — the state tax picture is one piece of the puzzle, but only one.
State taxes in retirement: the full picture beyond “no income tax” covers how to build a real tax comparison, including property, sales, and estate taxes alongside income tax.
A note on your own situation
Helping a parent through retirement decisions takes real time, energy, and sometimes money. If you’re also managing your own career, your own retirement planning, and potentially children of your own, the load is significant. Knowing what you realistically can and can’t sustain — and being clear about that with other family members — is part of doing this well.
You don’t have to carry it alone, and getting organized now is the most useful thing you can do for both yourself and your parent.
Not sure where to start? Take the 2-minute quiz — answering on behalf of a parent is a valid way to use it.