Millennial (25-40) Caregivers *Only*: What challenges are the hardest in caregiving due to our generation's general social mess?

Perfume...............Alvadeer here again, and I hope you are too.
I am so intrigued by the stuff from your state (PA I believe?) regarding a POA being able to be paid for caregiving duties. I have NEVER heard of this before. I am now so curious to know if it is the case for other states. We had an OP here recently very upset she could not get paid for POA duties (CA) and we pretty much all thought she could not for a second do it. I was especially adamant, and apparently one attorney had already told her she could not. This was for an incompetent adult. She was wanting to get paid above the 1% stipulated in POA papers for such things as cutting the grass,home care and upkeep, records keeping. Now I am wondering if I have been wrong, and for how many states.
Can you reassure me I got this CORRECT.
Question #1. In PA. where you are a POA for a living incompetent adult can be paid for accounting, paid for in home care including mobility, incontinence care, housekeeping, cooking and etc. up to the amount of 1,000 a month???
Question #2 The stipulation on this would be ONLY that the POA has to go before the court to get an OK on this WRITTEN contract????
Not arguing at all, but this is new to me and I am hoping to get information. I have for years been warning POAs here that they cannot get paid beyond what their document stipulates, that if they try to they may face dire circumstances (in the Cali gal I have been worried about two siblings who are there, who may make trouble in future with accusations of "self-enrichment".
So you have run this past an attorney, and this would wash in PA?
Do send a private message if you prefer.
I am not arguing with you, I am truly curious and feeling I may have been ill informed all this time.
I have a friend who is a Fiduciary in California, and would ask him (a Fiduciary serving my dead brother's ex who "became a friend"). Could ask him for CA. law, but know he's up against the guns of tax season finishing, a tough time for Licensed Fiduciaries.
Take care. I see you have fished in a couple of Millennials, which is great. I don't think folks are so much arguing with you, as just interested in this thread and many of us of a somewhat strong personality. I think we can't hold a handle to Reddit from what I hear, though I wouldn't know.
Back in with this after research on CA law:
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-a-poa-be-a-paid-caregiver-2158819.html
And yes, the law in CA also stipulates that the POA can be paid after the APPROVAL of a legal official, so it could go before the court and the document/contract be approved.
Looks like I have been DEAD WRONG all this time. If the POA cares to go through the hoops with attorney and courts (would be paid for as POA by estate I think) then they can serve doing specified care-giving as per the documents.

Hi! I’m in that age group. I don’t think it has anything to do with the generation or society’s current mess. There’s always a “society’s current mess”. And every generation thinks their generation’s mess is messier than the previous generation.

There are things about caregiving that worry - me - concerning specifically my age and being female:

Now’s the time for me to build my future (focus on my studies; I’m in college), start a career, get married, have children (females have a time limit).

If years go by, my life will get destroyed. I’ve set up more consistent caregivers now, so it frees up my time.

Blickbob, my fil has recent pelvic and back fractures, and mil has ms, but they can get their legs out of bed. So assuming that your mom just injured one ankle, she should be able to get her legs off the bed. If she makes it to the toilet, her legs work. And if they don’t and she’s falling and you’re dealing with double incontinence, she would logically go to snf.

Is that your limit? If not that, then have conditions of your own. At a certain point, she goes into a home. At a certain point beforehand, she cooperates with aides that she is paying for so that she doesn’t have to go into a home just yet. And at this point, she’s going to go get her legs looked at by an md, just as she sought medical help for the cancer…so that from there there will be a pt plan she cooperates with. Non negotiable, tell her, and warn that crying and tantruming will make it worse without changing your decision, your timeline, to leave.

A cancer pt in remission with a busted ankle who is 70 sounds like more likely to hit 90 than the burbling of how she’s supposedly dying any minute now. Which could put you at 50. Don’t do that to yourself. It is enough for you to have been there for over a third of your life without devoting yourself to doing her diaper or wrecking your back on falls.

I had asked a very similar question a few weeks back. I'm 4 years younger than you.

To answer your question, the hardest thing for me is watching everyone you know around your age get ahead of you in life, have their own places, get married, and have kids, while you're sitting in the dust left behind.

I turn 30 later this year and I've had to help my mom since I was almost 18. Caregiving is all I've done since graduating college and it has destroyed my life and I hope the damage can be reversed some day. It has cost me most of my 20s and I'm not getting my 20s or any other things lost to caregiving back. I have no job, almost nothing on my resume, no GF, let alone a wife, no kids, and I'm still in the nest. Whenever people ask what I do, all I can say is I take care of my mom. She was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and she's became immobile when she hurt her ankle while she was undergoing cancer treatments.

When the caregiving finally ends, I'm will have a very hard time finding work and because I'm so behind, I fear I might be working up until the day of my funeral. I'm hoping the worker shortage is still ongoing and someone will give me a shot. My mom thinks writing a cover letter for me will help me, but employers won't accept a cover letter from my MOTHER.

I can't get her to exercise and be out of bed more than once a week and she gets upset if I sound just a little aggravated, even if I'm not actually aggravated, and if I have enough courage just to BARELY make mention she should do some sort of thing. She thinks she needs encouragement, but the truth is, she needs motivation and she's turning to the wrong person for encouragement. I'm not an encourager by any means. She's calling on me to do things God didn't build me to do. She refuses to do any form of PT because of Covid and refuses to get extra help over here for fear of Covid and having her things get stolen. She won't seek out expert advise, let alone talk to a doctor. I hope it doesn't take me getting hurt, crippled, or dropping dead to finally get her to be more active and get extra help.

She once told me anger held within leads to depression, and yet I can't be upset at all with her and her shortcomings or criticize her in any way. She leans on me as her main source of encouragement, and yet if I encourage her to do something she needs to do, she gets upset. She hates her circumstances and wants to be mobile again, but doesn't hate it enough to put more effort into getting better. She sometimes call me a hero, but works me like a slave. She thinks I'm the Energizer bunny, but my batteries are about to run out. She acts like I'm not burned out and that I can hold it together, but the burnout is there and I always pray that God continue to help me hold it together. She tells me I've been a trooper, but it's a matter of time before I go AWOL or start a mutiny of sorts. She's 70, but it feels like I'm being forced to take care of a 90 year old. No one ever taught me to stand up for myself and I'm the wishy-washy type that could've used a lesson or two in standing up for myself rather than be told by my mom "it's something you learn on your own."

Her expectations are at a 2 and they need to be at at least an 8, preferably higher. Needing help getting your legs in and out of the shower, having to hold the shower head for you here and there, and having to somewhat help you get dressed when you're done with the shower is NOT a successful shower. At all. I remember when she could get her legs in AND out without any help. I remember when she didn't need any help getting her legs on or off her bed and she was out of bed more than once a week.

The ops parents plus the parents siblings were all probably born in the 1960s and they’re addicts, in jail or both. So if she’s especially skeptical of boomers, I can’t hardly blame her. Even though, really, the live ones weren’t as imperious as some of those that died of aids.

Op seems to have a good hand on the financials for now, even if she does speak with some of imperviousness of youth about it. But there are other things to consider.

Perfume, if you wanna have a baby, that’ll ,be easiest in the next 4 years. If you want to remain child free, the best pickings are over that time frame. You get much older and there will be someone with joint custody wanting you to be available to his kids while being less than charitable about your baggage. And then there’s the career stuff. If you want to go for an electrician apprenticeship while simultaneously increasing your network in your field of study, it’ll be a lot easier now than even five years from now.

OP, your grandpa himself got himself into this position. One bad kid, ok, but none of his kids worked out, which does speak to his child rearing. He’s what, mid 70s, so his attitude might well devolve to his thinking in the mid 1970s dementia or not. The senior brat behavior of crying or throwing a tantrum or being patriarchal are very common, then there’s the allegations of stealing, there will probably be falls and pretty soon you have an elder that maybe can transfer to a commode and or may not cooperate with wearing depends or changing them.

Overlay this with the typical timeframe for other life events, op. How much longer are you willing to live there?

I was looking forward to reading this discussion.
I am sorry it didn't work out.

lealonnie1,

You are being a message board goblin, respect on the trolling as a reddit user lol. But seriously, again, I empathized several posts ago that every age group has a unique experience because of the times they were born in---I have completely avoided the boomer culture wars here, because 1. I'm outnumbered! 2. I don't believe Boomers are a monolith, though I do think a lot of the cool ones died early due to AIDS or other tragedies of medical treatments not advancing in time for them to heal. The greedy ones obsessed with money and vacant/backwards social policies in the name of money have trashed the world, it's not because being born in the year 1950 meant you got a shot in your childhood vaccine schedule that makes you evil and primed for affluence. It's just that the weirdos and the poorer boomers die younger.

I didn't know that you can't delete a thread here, but I do know that I didn't spit vitriol at people older than me in my original post. You were younger once, why the bitterness that younger people want to enjoy being younger? Culture fetishizes youth, we're all affected by it, including you being bothered by it because society values youth and creates invisibility to those over 50, especially women, which obviously terrifies me. Young people fear getting older because of biological changes but also because we too know we will eventually be devalued. I will also defend Reddit, because its not just trolls and divisive hateful jerks, there are plenty of really informational communities, especially for hyper-specific medical maladies, like vascular dementia, contributions from medical professionals and anecdotal experiences alike.

notgoodenough,

Wanting to locate people closer to my experience has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion of people older than me. My partner is a Gen-Xer (maybe I should have prefaced this whole post with that to prove my lack of derision towards people older than me). Even though he has years on me, he has been lucky enough to have incredibly healthy parents who thought ahead with long-term care insurance and moved themselves into a retirement community. People all over the board ask questions that are relevant to them. The reason I shared my direct experience in my original post was to kick-off a conversation, like a support group meeting.

Oh, child, you miss my point.

I don't want anyone to suffer. I have been very vocal to younger caregivers who come here distraught, telling them that they should not be expected to give up their lives at such a young age to caregive, and for anyone to expect them to do otherwise is being cruel to them. If you have bothered to read any of those posts - which I would think would interest you, considering you specifically asked for the opinions of people closer to your age ONLY - you might have seen that.

I don't want you to suffer the fate that I see many, many people here going through; my issue is with the rather self-absorbed way you come across in your posts; it seems to ME that YOUR attitude is because we are older, our lives and livelihoods and difficulties with caregiving don't matter as much as yours, aren't as serious as your, because you're young and have so much more to look forward to, and being older, we should be ready to turn out faces to the wall and give up anyway.

But you know what- whatever. As I said, it's no matter to me if you think you don't need my opinion, considering I don't know you and you don't know me. I really, sincerely do wish you the best with your caregiving journey with your grandfather. But for myself, I think I'm rather done with the drama you seemed to want to create with this posting.

Just a word from a Reddit-hating Boomer here (the worst-hated age group of ALL TIME b/c we've 'poisoned the earth & have saved money to boot') to let you know that you cannot 'delete' a thread here like you can on the hate filled/hate spewing Reddit site. Once it's here, it's here to stay, unless the moderator deletes it; there's no way to get rid of the post OR the comments, even those you don't like, they're here to stay, until it's closed for further comments in time due to its old age.

BTW, it's not only the 'millennials' who have it soooooooo hard and feel trapped into caregiving and don't feel free, it's ALL OF US caregivers, no matter what label you want to slap on us.

Have a nice day!

Interesting perspective regarding climate change and caregiving. Thanks for giving me something to think about.

And I agree Nancy Grace is ridiculous. I really don't like her at all.

to notgoodenough,

I just re-read your comment and that is such a crappy reaction to blast younger people who are interested in going to bat for people who are marginalized---which includes people like the sick and elderly. I would think that a generation opening their eyes with more compassion to people who are outliers of the bulk of the population in America would be social progress. I understand your gripe with kids who overuse the term in such a manner that loses meaning, but don't forget that 18-25 years olds historically make bigger bolder statements than their elders in every generation. Also, you can't marginalize people who have more power than you, and because of the trajectory of America economic and social policy, there is a fair chance that people 50-65 have more economic power because they came of age during a more economically secure America.

I am probably going to delete this thread because all I have seemed to do is piss people off who this thread wasn't really directed towards. Asking to find people that are part of a social group I belong to, 25-40 year olds, who are typically not caregivers for the elderly in our current society, shouldn't feel exclusionary when the majority of the members of this board are middle-aged or older. What exactly do you lose when someone seeks out others with more specifically similar experiences? Why does this make you seemingly so angry?

And again, I will just reiterate, I have participated in threads in the past and have been grateful for the advice for more seasoned caregivers. I'll leave this up for another day or two to see if there are anymore millennials, but don't worry, I'll delete after that since it is such a trigger for you (I'm sure you'll write off "trigger" as what you deem millennial wah-wah garbage, but it is a really useful term to step back and wonder why something makes you so reactive).

Hi again AlvaDeer,

The attorney was not only referring to the POA "admin"----Pennsylvania has a state funded program for family to be caregivers for their loved ones---ONLY Power of Attorney is not allowed to be paid through the state for conflict of interest.

If a POA is doing the caregiving labor (not the decision making), they are allowed to present to probate courts to determine a maximum "wage" off of the estate if it is situations that require extensive care (the bedridden, dementia, etc). Some POAs can go as far as paying themselves a full ACCOUNTANT wage for the hours they do financial affairs (which to me is crazy tbh). I am only time-sheeting for active hours (cleaning for toileting messes, extensive chores due to his condition etc) and will absolutely not compensate over 1000 dollars even if the "wage" would pay higher. Does that make sense? A lawyer has to oversee the drawn documents, and they can be drawn post-incompetency. This might only apply to dementia in our state.

PeggySue, I think there is a misunderstanding---I have only become a full-time caregiver since August 2021. I worked my whole life before caregiving with the exception of 2020.

When my grandfather needs a SNF, which will happen eventually, Pennsylvania law allows for medicaid application even if we exhaust the reverse mortgage funds---the caveat would be the immediately sale of the house after he was placed. This is why I am astute about keeping receipts, documenting expenses, keeping a tight checkbook, and drawing documents like listed above. My strategy is to put aside a chunk of the reverse mortgage for when the time comes, so that I'm able to pay his way into a decent SNF that is medicaid accepting----he can't be kicked out of the bed when he runs out of money, because the draw down for medicaid would be already planned.

Correct, those in their 50s did accumulate their wealth. I am his plan in time and money in a sense, but there is already a forward-looking plan.

sp19690, climate change has plenty to do with being a caregiver, because anyone responsible for the physical security of another person is doubly affected (not just elder caregivers, parents too). I'm considering increasing coverage in his homeowner's policy in the fall---route I-76 in Philadelphia flooded last year to the put that the highway was submerged completely at an underpass section of it. We live in the new hurricane alley. Climate disaster will continue to increase the class divide---public resources will be drained faster, scarcity of social programs, etc. All of these things affect EVERYONE of course----but think about it in a social ecology---who are the most invisible in society? The old, the sick, and the poor. So those programs are first off the chopping block as we move deeper into the climate crisis in the state of current capitalism, which is moving closer to a feudal system every year. Young caregivers will be more affected because they will theoretically be drained of more resources and likely still alive when things get really wild.

Sendhelp, My avatar is Nancy Grace because she's absurd.

Notgoodenough, I'm sorry my semantics offended you. I still truly don't understand how it is offensive to reach out to find direct peers in my age group that are more scarce to the experience than people middle-aged and even older. I never said we have it harder than older caregivers, they are merely different experiences. If you noticed, I did not blast a perception of older people's struggles, in fact, if you read below, I empathized with the unique experiences of people in different age groups. I think it sucks for Boomers that they are doing this kind of love labor into their retirement---it's likely that their parents did not have to do the same. I feel for Gen X that they have potential college students to pay for and care for their aging parents. You seem to have the mentality of "I suffered so you should too"--I wish you peace with that worldview.

Just to defend the topic a bit, I do think Millennial and younger caregivers do have it worse than older caregivers, for reasons PeggySue alludes to. Their prime working years are being hijacked. Future ability to retire is being impacted. For instance, I am not rich but before caregiving I did work for a company with profit sharing and 401k and I was able to sock away a good deal. So I have a nest egg that is now compounding for me,

Also, some younger caregivers may not be having the families and relationships they want. Fertility is time-sensitive. There is only so much time.

Finally, as I mentioned previously, family dysfunction seems to play a much larger role for younger caregivers. For me, the most infuriating posts on this forum are from Gen Z members feeling pressured to take care of elders instead of going to college or even finishing high school (!), getting married, starting a family, going out into the world on their own. etc.

Oh, oh, I just read that "I will not pay myself over 1,000 a month" and this is for acting as POA?
Oh oh again. Even a Licensed and trained formal Fiduciary gets no more than 90 and hour and likely, after arranging the estate of the elder he is managing, spends no more than two hours a month on any given elder.
I would be amazed if any attorney in any state would approve anything like that amount to serve as a POA. Do know that the laws are more strict for those of us acting as a Fiduciary than almost any other laws. Enriching ourselves by serving as a Fiduciary is not only morally wrong, but legally very very very dangerous.
I would go back to that attorney. I think someone here has misunderstood something.
Also, read your POA document.
It will state right in the document how much you can be paid to act as POA. (Usually, anyway. Almost always in Will and Trust appointing successor trustee or executor, but usually in a well written POA as well).
Be careful, really careful. As I said, you can hire others, but hiring yourself, when you are the POA? Very scary stuff.

Hi Perfume,
Your degree may open some doors in the field, and many people use them as a springboard to transition to, for example nonprofit management not just in the arts, but in general.

What concerns me more is that I’m hearing you saying that you may have been caregiving for 12 years. If true, that’s a third of your life. There was a time you got a contract for 50k. A Starbucks barista here will make that full time in a year, not even counting tips, while also getting health insurance and 401k. If it has been 12 years that is 600k of potential income plus social security credits that didn’t happen.

Another concern is that reverse mortgages only let the elder live in the home for life. What happens when he really does need an mc or snf? 247 not even at that level is 200k/year, and even with the reverse he might not be able to afford that.

So the question is, are you his plan in money or time? For how much longer? Those in their 50s really did accumulate the wealth they needed to have the house they’re in due to moves they made from 28-44, which involve direct interaction. Networking.

I would like to know what climate change has to do with being a caregiver. The biggest polluters are big corporations and governments so thinking you are doing your part to stop climate change is like dropping a penny in the ocean and trying to make a tsunami. This planet is doomed because of people who think it is ok to poison the word we breathe, the food we eat and everything in between to make a profit. And this electric vehicles are the biggest polluters out there. Just the mining for the materials to make the batteries and then what happens to said batteries when they need to be replaced?

Why is your avatar of a 62 y.o. television host, if you are a millenial?

So you post a lot in Reddit, I guess that explains it.

Your comment "I knew I was going to get this sort of reaction" also explains a lot.

You know, how you word things matters an awful lot. If you had said "Hey, anyone else here on the board a millennial? If so, and you've followed any of the threads, do you feel there are things unique to caregiving for those of us who are younger?" Perfectly acceptable question.

But "We have it so very much harder than the older people doing caregiving" attitude - sorry, gotta call B.S. on that. Giving up a source of income because you can't leave the house due to your LO's needs? Been there, done that. Sucked into caregiving well past what we were prepared to do? Yer preaching to the choir. Not having a social life because of caregiving demands? Yep. Concern about finances/recession? I could write a book. About the only thing I can't "relate" to on your post is climate change - and not because it's not a concern of mine. but because it has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with caregiving.

As I said, we're all in the same sort of leaky rowboat here, with no one's caregiving burdens greater or lesser than another - the burdens might be different, but we're all trying (or have tried) to get by the best we can. To marginalize (yes, a word I see "your generation" LOVES to use) the older caregivers is rather short-sighted on your part. But if you think we have nothing to contribute, fine and dandy. It's no skin off my a** if you refuse to look to experienced caregivers for advice or support.

Hi SnoopyLove,

Thanks for the link! I have a NY Times account, I'll go check this out immediately. :)

Perfume. I am so glad that you ran all your stuff past the Elder Law Attorney. With your careful record keeping there should then be no problems with POA and what you are taking as "payment". You will at least have the legal advice to put forth should you ever be questioned. Keep careful records and you are set for bear.

On to art, my daughter's best friend E. has her degree in art, is a graphic designers and one contract alone pays her 80.00 an hour. (It's with a huge hospital system in SF and she does all the computer graphics design). Not only that, but she does this from her van while she runs around the country at will. Talk about something working out that her Mom browbeat her about throughout her education at the Academy of Art. Also, I guess that's rare. Still, works for her.
I am still waiting for the Millennial's to ride on in here. Sadly enough I think we have way too few.
Wishing you the very best. Following the thread.

Gen Xer here, but it's an interesting discussion topic. This is purely anecodotal but I feel like a lot if not most of the Millennial and Gen Z caregivers we get on the forum are, like yourself, dealing with the fallout of increased drug (opioid crisis?) and alcohol addictions. So they are stuck with taking care of grandparents as their parents are too addicted and sick to deal with it. Sorry to hear about what the generation before you in your family left for YOU to take care of.

Here's an interesting New York Times article about millennials and caregiving from 2019:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/business/millennials-caregiving-retirement.html

Note: if you hit a paywall (NYT gives non-subscribers a few free articles per month), try accessing the article from another device or Googling the article's title, "For Millennials Making Their Way, a Detour: To Caregiving".

PeggySue2020,

I did not finish my education completely online, my program allowed students to return to facility use in 2021 with certain stipulations. I'm not sure if you folks think I have my head in the clouds finishing an arts education as an older student or what, but I put 2.5 years into a degree at the normal college age. Finishing something I started is much less a waste of money than having debt and no degree. I am not under some illusion that a Bachelors of Fine Arts is going to pay big---in 2022, a bachelor's in anything is comparable to a high school degree. I can take the GREs like any other person in any other major and return to grad school to change careers or tracks, and if I don't want to incur more debt, I have connections to people who could help me slide into the world of trade apprenticeships. I am certainly scrappy and smart enough for electrician work which is in high demand. Also, there are a lot of tonal assumptions made about getting a degree in art and being a barista for the rest of your life. There are plenty of resourceful people who are able to sustain a practice and make a living to pay bills and also sell artwork. My best friends' paintings are selling for 10k in respected NYC galleries. I have plenty of friends who are "making it". So I'm not sure why people are so discouraging to those who possess the moxie to go after it.

I did not take a voluntary sabbatical from my education, I could no longer afford to finish it as a kid coming from a working-class background during the recession. I already worked 30 hours a week on top of full-time classes. I started college when I was 17 years old in a dual certificate BFA---my academics were taken at the University of Pennsylvania. It's an Ivy League school. Ivy degrees held more weight back then, regardless of major. I would have probably at least been a candidate for a decent arts administration desk job, had I not been financially pushed out. So, I'm not some slacker who dropped out to smoke weed, I dropped out because the investment in my own education became untenable. The reason I could not return to my education at an earlier age is because the federal government mandated a rule for students seeking independent tax status for their own loans (aka no guarantor, as my grandmother who initially signed, died) without documents from their parents. My mother refused to hand over her social security number for me to be able to file appropriate documentation, out of sheer spite---in her words "you just think you're better than everyone else now". So I could not return to school until after age 26 (the age of automatic independent tax status according to student loan companies), for me to qualify for enough loans, grants and aides to finish.

My paternal grandmother signed off on my initial loans as a guarantor, and never had to put a dime towards it. All of my loans have been my responsibility. I have worked every year of my life since I was 17 years old except 2020 to now---I was on unemployment much like many. So I have paid taxes for 56 quarters of my life.

All three of my grandfathers' children either have end game drug/alcohol problems or are incarcerated.

Alvadeer, I appreciate your input regarding my POA inquiry. There is a lot of different information state-to-state (I'm in Pennsylvania). I have spoken to an elder law attorney, who informed me that I can pay myself with a notarized document overseen by a law professional, and to just see my local probate to make sure I am functioning within the approved hourly wage. I'm filing taxes on this, as is my grandfather's estate as an "employer". The amount of money I contributed to his care before speaking to a lawyer for fear of medicaid chasing me down if I paid myself back will probably not be able to be recouped with timesheets, which is totally ok at this point. I will not "pay myself" over 1000 dollars a month, because there's no point in that if my participation with the dirty work is supposed to save us money to avoid hiring aides more often. Thank you for the input though, sincerely.

Op took a sabbatical from her education 10-12 years ago and then finished it up presumably online during the pandemic. And it’s in art. Even if this is graphic design or gaming, there’s already a cadre of 18-22 year olds who are already in demand more.

Art, opera, singing, acting don’t tend to pay the bills ever. Op, who signed your student loans and how many quarters have you worked in 12 years for social security? Volunteering for pop pop or living at his house for free doesn’t count. Where is pop pops actual child?

I'm not sure why this is so upsetting to people....

I am probably used to message boards like Reddit, which start very specific threads and sometimes inquire for perspectives from a specific group of people....

It is correct that there is a smaller amount of Millennials on here, which is why I wanted to start a thread for any available.

The criticism of "being an artist being your first mistake" is so rude. It is not my own stream of income, and when I have not been a caregiver in the past, I've pulled 48-50k freelancing and working as a food and beverage sales rep while growing my own work. That's more income than the average American. So kindly knock off the stereotyping that you are so apparently against when it comes to different age groups.

I sort of expected this, which is why I asked in my original post to let it be just for the 25-40 group. There are issues that are specific to my age group----boomers will be dead or in their parents' shoes when climate change really starts to create even more economic scarcity, and we already lost earning power during the formative years of careers. Why is this so problematic to ask a specific inquiry? Gen X was affected when the Dotcom bubble popped more than any other age group. Statistically, because time is an ever moving concept, some groups are going to have more in common. There are plenty of open forum threads.

Furthermore, the majority of caregivers for the aging are over 40. It's just how the cookie crumbles when it comes to the average family trajectory. So it is a more specific experience---that's an undeniable fact. And the biggest difference, is the younger you start, the more your lifetime earning power is affected. Again, why is this such an offensive idea to want to hear from others in my age group affected by this?

I have participated in plenty of threads across groups and am grateful for the wisdom from elders. I really don't see why this is such a problem. The reactivity and defensiveness to the request for a specific strain of experience is just weird. I would certainly NEVER be offended if Gen Xers, who are the next youngest generational set of caregivers wanted to talk shop about issues in their age group as a sandwich generation, often taking care of parents and children, or Boomers who are having to care for their elders well into their 70 when they should be enjoying their retirement. I'm not even participating in the typical Boomer vs. Millennial cultural warfare by asking for this prompt. Jeez.

Ah, youth! As if anyone older might not have liked to go out to a party while being burdened with caregiving, would like to make a living as an artist (there's your first mistake, I'm afraid -- and that's coming from the daughter of an artist), or hasn't lived through a recession and had their career aspirations shot all to hell. (Class of 1983 here.)

I won't offer any advice, since it isn't sought, but as the others have said, your situation is not unique, nor does your age really matter as much as you think it does except for your tunnel vision.

Just my opinion. AC is an open forum for caregivers. I see no need for exclusionary threads for any age group. And I don't care for labels of GenX, Boomers, etc. Age is just a number, not a label. People are people. We are all more alike than different.

I agree with all. We rarely see millennials here; it is usually their parents who are doing the caregiving. Occasionally we see some grandchild, which is almost always a disaster for them.
As my advice is not unique for any age group I will only caution you to be certain of your POA language. You will be able to accept "stipends" only according to the language of the document. You cannot, by Fiduciary Law in most states" be seen to be "enriching" yourself by being POA. The sad fact of that is that you can pay an accountant to do the work, but not yourself. You can pay someone to do the roof, cut the grass, repair the home, but not yourself. And so on. Run any costs you intent past a good Elder Law Attorney. Your POA DOES pay for that. Be certain there is a clear contract and record keeping for your own protection.
I wish you luck and can't wait to see some response from any millennials we might have on Forum. Wishing you the very best of luck.

NG, well said.

I'm just curious WHY you *only* want to hear from the perspective of your fellow millennials - because no caregiving problems that you described in your post are exclusive to just that generation.

I also don't know how many people here are millennials. If you change who you're looking for answers/advice/suggestions from, you might get way more input and maybe some ideas on how to lessen your burden. But with respect, the way you worded your request sounds very small minded - like your caregiving woes are so much worse than anyone else BECAUSE you're a millennial.