Caring for Your Parents
“We’ll Figure It Out Later” Is Not a Plan: What My Conversation with a Dementia Care Navigator Taught Me About Aging Parents
When I launched My Parents Lied to Me, I knew I wanted it to be more than just stories about loss and aging. I wanted it to be a wake-up call for all of us “adult kids” who are quietly terrified about what’s coming with our parents but still avoiding the hard conversations.
In this episode, I talked with my friend Shannon Arriola, a life transition coach who helps families navigate dementia, serious illness, and the long, messy in-between from diagnosis to end of life. Her story hit me right in the gut, because it’s exactly what so many of us fear and what I was trying to prepare for with my own parents.
They just didn’t get the long runway she and her clients live through. And honestly? I thought I was “ahead of the game” until I realized how much I didn’t know.
Meet Shannon: The Oldest Daughter Who Ended Up Holding Everything
Seventeen years ago, while working full time in healthcare and leadership coaching, Shannon became a caregiver and medical power of attorney for two family members who developed dementia in the same year, her mom and her aunt.
Both women had husbands, but culturally and practically, the responsibility landed where it so often does: on the adult daughter.
Her mom showed symptoms for over 17 years. Her aunt lived with a more aggressive form of vascular dementia for about eight years. Shannon was:
Working full-time
Flying back and forth to care for her mom in Idaho
Supporting her aunt in Arizona
Tag-teaming with a brother whose own wife was developing dementia
It was a full-time job stacked on top of a full-time job—and it almost broke her.
When she went looking for help, she couldn’t find anyone who understood the whole system: emotions, logistics, money, legal decisions, sibling dynamics, long-term planning. So she left corporate work and built a practice around guiding families through exactly that.
The Reluctant Caregiver Nobody Prepared Us To Be
Here’s the part we don’t like to admit out loud:
a lot of us don’t actually want to be our parents’ primary caregiver.
Not because we don’t love them, because we’re already stretched thin. Careers, kids, money stress, our own health, our own aging. And yet, in so many families, there’s an unspoken assumption:
“When something happens, you’ll step in and figure it out.”
Shannon talks about the reluctant caregiver the daughter, son, or spouse who never truly signed up for this role but ends up with the weight of it anyway. There’s grief, obligation, guilt, resentment, and love all wrapped together.
And when there hasn’t been a plan or real conversation ahead of time, those emotions explode right when you’re trying to make massive decisions under pressure.
Why We Avoid the Tough Conversations (And Why That Backfires)
In my own family, we joked about the hard stuff:
“Mom, if things get bad, you’re going into a home.”
“When you die, we’re just pulling up a dumpster to the house.”
It was dark humor. It made my mom nuts. But it was also our way of not saying what needed to be said:
Where do you want to live if you can’t stay home safely?
Who is actually in charge if something happens?
What money is there and what isn’t?
What are your medical wishes really?
Shannon sees this gap constantly. About half of families don’t have their legal ducks in a row no updated wills, powers of attorney, or clear end-of-life documents. And even when they do, parents often never tell their kids where anything is or what they’ve decided.
So what happens?
A diagnosis. A stroke. A fall. A broken hip. A late-night phone call:
“Your mom can’t live alone anymore. We need a discharge plan now.”
There’s no roadmap. No shared expectations. No time to research options. Kids are forced into reactive mode, making life-altering choices in hours for a situation they barely understand.
The Brutal Reality of “We’ll Just Figure It Out”
One of the most sobering parts of our conversation was about money and care.
In the Phoenix area, Shannon sees:
24/7 in-home care: around $1,000 a day
Assisted living: often $6,000–$13,000+ per month
Independent / resort-style options: frequently $5,000–$7,000+ per month plus possible buy-in fees
Most families simply aren’t financially prepared for that. I know mine wasn’t. When my parents passed, I was grateful for what was left but it never would have covered years of high-level care.
So kids say things like:
“We’ll just move Mom or Dad in with us.”
Sometimes that works. Many times, it blows up marriages, finances, and parent-child relationships. Parents don’t necessarily want to live with their kids any more than we want our adult kids permanently living with us.
Shannon also sees the hard truth that some adult children push for “keeping care in the family” to stretch an inheritance. No judgment—but it’s not a solid plan if it destroys your health, relationships, or your ability to work.
The point isn’t to shame anyone. It’s to say clearly:
“We’ll figure it out later” is not a plan.
Starting the Conversation: With Your Friends First
One of Shannon’s most practical suggestions surprised me:
Start with your peer group, not your parents.
Invite a few trusted friends over and ask:
Have you talked to your parents about how they want to live in their 70s, 80s, and 90s?
Do your parents expect you to be their caregiver?
Do you want that role?
What happens if you don’t?
When you say these things out loud with people your age, it gets real fast.
From there, you’re better equipped to go to your own parents and say something like:
“I love you, and I want to honor your wishes.
Can we talk now about how you want to live in your third and fourth quarter of life—where you’d want to be, who you’d want helping you, and what you absolutely don’t want?”
Not “What do you want when you die?”
More: “How do you want to live as things change?”
Where People Like Shannon (and Your Parent Porter) Fit In
A lot of families can’t have these conversations alone. There’s history. There’s conflict. There are old wounds that show up the minute money, control, or health is mentioned.
That’s where a neutral third-party can be invaluable.
Shannon works as:
A family coach and mediator
A guide through the legal and financial maze
A translator between parents, adult children, and care systems
Sometimes parents and kids haven’t really spoken in years. She helps them reconnect enough to make decisions that are safe, respectful, and realistic.
That’s also where Your Parent Porter lives in this ecosystem.
My role isn’t to diagnose or replace medical or legal professionals. It’s to:
Observe what’s really happening in the home
Report honestly to families (including out-of-state kids)
Recommend proactive solutions that support safety, independence, and dignity
From clutter that’s become a trip hazard, to Mom subtly using the wall to steady herself, to a house full of “saved for the kids” stuff no one actually wants these are the things we can catch early and act on, long before the crisis call.
If You’re an Adult Child Reading This, Here’s Your Next Step
If this stirred something up for you, good. That means you’re awake to it now.
Here are a few simple places to start:
Talk to a friend.
Ask one person your age if they’ve talked to their parents about end-of-life wishes, housing, and money. Compare notes.Ask your parents one gentle question.
Not twenty. Just one, like:“If your health changed suddenly, where would you want to be living?”
Get curious, not controlling.
This isn’t about steamrolling your parents. It’s about understanding their wishes while there’s still time to honor them.Bring in help sooner than you think.
Whether it’s someone like Shannon for complex medical/neurological journeys, or someone like me doing proactive home & wellness check-ins, you do not have to figure this out alone.
We Can’t Change What Our Parents Didn’t Tell Us, But We Can Change What Happens Next
My parents passed in their 60s, sooner than I ever imagined. I didn’t have to live through years of slow decline and caregiving decisions, and in a strange way, that was a blessing. But it also shattered my original “why” and forced me to ask:
What could we have done sooner?
What conversations did we avoid because they were uncomfortable?
How can I help other families not feel so blindsided?
That’s why I created Your Parent Porter.
That’s why I host My Parents Lied to Me.
And that’s why conversations like the one with Shannon matter so much.
We can’t go back and get a do-over with our parents. But we can choose to face the truth about aging now, with more honesty, more planning, and more heart.
Because “later” is coming, whether we talk about it or not.
The question is: Do you want to be reacting in crisis—or leading your family with a plan?
If you’d like support starting these conversations or taking a proactive look at your parents’ home and daily life, I’d love to connect. This is hard and emotional—and you don’t have to carry it by yourself.
Check out the full conversation on YouTube @yourparentporter
