When aging parents need help, kids' suddenly become caregivers

ORLANDO, Fla. — Like many adults, especially those who live hundreds of miles from their parents, Yvonne Williams didn't recognize the signs that her mom needed help. In phone conversations, her mom sounded normal.

What Williams, who lives in Orlando, Fla., didn't know was that her mom hadn't paid her rent on her New York City apartment in a year — and was in the process of being evicted. And that's when she realized that her mom, a retired corrections officer whom she'd always viewed as a strong, independent woman, needed some help.

But Williams and her mother had never discussed what they might do when this time came. Where would she live? How would they pay for it? Like many children with aging parents, Williams had to make a decision in an emergency. Facing a bill of $22,000 in back rent, she flew to New York, packed up her mom's apartment and moved her to Orlando.

Stories like hers are likely going to become more common in the United States as the 78 million baby boomers age and create what demographers are calling a "silver surge."

Between 2000 and 2007, the number of elderly parents moving in with their kids jumped 67 percent. And experts expect that trend to continue, thanks to the high cost of housing, the cost of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and the nation's struggling economy.

Mom, Dad need help

Realizing that mom or dad can no longer take care of themselves is not an overnight discovery. Instead, many families realize it bit by bit, as they slowly notice that mom is having trouble driving. Or that dad's stopped eating. "All caregivers usually wait until some kind of crisis occurs to even look into other living arrangements," said Mary Ellen Grant, executive director of Share the Care, an Orlando-based caregivers' support network. "They wait until the person sets the house on fire, or leaves the water on and floods the house."

For Williams, 48, the process took several turns. First, she helped her mom, Carole Riddick, now 70, settle into an apartment near her Orlando home, so she could keep tabs on her.

"I still didn't know how bad things were," Williams said. Although her mom was still dressing herself and taking her dog on walks, she had stopped cooking altogether. She ate primarily peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

So Williams brought over meals, or bought her mom microwave dinners. She visited her mom daily, before or after her full-time job at Florida Hospital College, where she was an enrollment specialist.

This is not the retirement Williams envisioned for her mom. "I figured she was going to retire, stay in New York and take vacations," she said. "We absolutely never thought this would be our life."