This section covers two related topics – how we relate to our own siblings as we get older, and how our children as siblings relate to us in our later years. Both are inevitably an extension of how we have all related to each other when we were younger, and how well we have communicated and worked together in the past. One thing we can be fairly sure of is that issues that haven’t been explored, processed and resolved in our younger lives have a tendency to come back and bite us later on.

As with any aspect of family life, the importance and quality of our relationships with our sisters and brothers varies enormously from person to person and family to family. If we’re fortunate enough still to have any, our siblings can be a very special source of support and shared history; when one dies before us the loss can be enormous, and underlines the importance of making sure you say what needs to be said while there is still time.

When we reach the point where we need help from our own children we need to be aware that the care of older parents can be a major source of stress and conflict. If one of our children shoulders a disproportionate burden of our care needs, a sense of unfairness can foster resentment between them and the others. Children who live further away from us tend to leave the responsibility to the nearest, and sons tend to leave caring to daughters under the convenient belief that women are better at it than men, both of which can lead to strong feelings of unfairness which may well impact on the support we can expect to receive. Our children can also clash over their parents’ finances. In a perfect world we would all be selfless and not motivated by money, but as we live in a far from perfect world where money is indispensable, financial issues can be a real problem within families.

Caregiving can be very stressful, and when family history and questions of fairness and inheritance are added it is all too easy for situations to arise where important issues are not being dealt with because they feel too difficult to raise and resolve. When family dynamics are already tense around a parent’s growing care needs, issues around fairness and the distribution of scarce resources can easily compound the conflict. How much of any inheritance we might be able to leave to our children will be required for our own end-of-life care is almost certain to be a potential area of conflict, and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. At the very least we owe it to our children, while we still can, to work with them creatively and responsibly towards care solutions that are best for us and for them.