Boomers without family connections must plan for future

It's seldom voiced explicitly, maybe because it sounds so selfish, but one of the benefits of having children is the possibility that, someday, those kids can take care of Mom and Dad when they get old.

It's all very Norman Rockwell, the notion of growing older surrounded by loving kids, spouses and members of one's extended family. But, for many baby boomers, it's an iconic image that isn't to be.

Those who've never married. Those who've never had children. Those whose spouses are gone because of death or divorce. Those who may not even have siblings they can rely on in old age.

Call them orphan boomers, facing the prospect of upcoming retirement and old age without the built-in support system otherwise provided by marriage or family.

It's difficult to say just how many orphan boomers there are. However, an AARP-Focalyst survey earlier this year shows that about one-third of boomers -- Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- are single, a percentage that includes the divorced, the never-married and the widowed.

The survey notes that an estimated 8 million boomers never married at all.

A recent divorce made Larry Weiss, 61, director of the Sanford Center for Aging at the University of Nevada, Reno, a conscript into this legion of unmarried and childless boomers.

"For those of us in that (orphan boomer) role, yeah, I think about it all the time," Weiss says. "I didn't have any kids. I am divorced, so I'm single, and I probably will not get married again."

For married boomers, or boomers with kids, having a built-in familial support system is taken for granted. But when Weiss broke a leg skiing earlier this year, maneuvering about his home came down to him and his own ingenuity.

"I was on crutches, so how do you carry a drink from Point A to Point B?" he says. "I mean, you don't have anybody here to help you."

Even trickier are the more serious medical what-ifs orphan boomers have to face.

"Say you have a health event where you can't make decisions for yourself," Weiss says. "Who's going to do that?"

The answer usually is: friends and associates whom orphan boomers turn into a quasi-familial support system. Humans, Weiss notes, "are social beings. They like being in packs. So surrogate families can develop."

The problem is that, legally speaking, a surrogate family isn't a family. And that, Elizabeth Brickfield notes, can be a problem.

Brickfield, an attorney with Lionel, Sawyer & Collins, says people who don't have spouses or children -- both of whom are recognized by law as having the authority to speak for someone if he or she can't -- should pay particular attention to drawing up such legal documents as powers of attorney.

For example, a health care power of attorney covers such things as end-of-life issues and medical treatment, while a general power of attorney can give a friend or associate the legal authority to pay bills, open mail, and take care of personal and business affairs if a person can't.

Lacking such documents, someone without a spouse, child or family member "will have decisions made for them by courts," Brickfield says. "And, although as a lawyer you have a lot of confidence in the courts, I'm not quite sure that people necessarily think through the fact that I'd prefer to have my best friend make that decision for me."

Equally important is discussing such issues with that friend. It could be, Brickfield says, that even a longtime best friend may not feel comfortable making an end-of-life decision for someone else.

That conversation can be the toughest part of the whole process, Brickfield adds. "I always tell my clients ... coming into see an attorney is the easy part. The difficult part is sitting down to talk to each other about what you want to do and how you want to do it."

Orphan boomers also should make arrangements for a time when they can't care for themselves. Brickfield says questions to consider include: How are my funds going to be used to take care of me? Do I want to stay at home? Do I want to move into assisted living? Do I have the resources to stay at home?

"The question is: Who is going to take care of my assets for me and make sure they're used to my benefit when I can't do that myself anymore?" she says.

And, again, lacking a legal document specifically naming a friend to that role, the courts will intervene.

"The last piece is: To whom do I want to leave my assets when I die?" Brickfield adds.

Under state law, property goes to the nearest relative -- such as a spouse or child -- of someone who has died without a will. But, Brickfield says, "if there isn't one, it goes to the state of Nevada in Nevada."

So, if a childless, spouseless boomer wishes for a friend, a charity or another entity to benefit after his or her death, those wishes must be made clear in a legal document.

An orphan boomer can feel the practical effects of having no spouse or child support system in less dire circumstances, too. There is, for example, "the caregiving piece," Weiss says: "What do you do when you need help at home?"

Weiss' ski injury left him on crutches for four months. But, he says, "for a lot of people, it's not temporary. It's permanent."

Similarly, during a recent hospital stay, "I was lucky I had a friend who came with me and drove me," Weiss says. "I would not think about going into a hospital without some form of advocate there who's sort of paying attention to what's going on."

Some local churches and nonprofit organizations offer programs in which homebound seniors are visited and offered assistance of various sorts. In the same vein, there are in-home health care services.

For the other concerns of everyday life, one option is a company such as Comfort Keepers, an Ohio-based firm founded in 1998 to offer nonmedical in-home care services.

Lorraine Mathews, client caregiver coordinator for the company's Las Vegas franchise, says services can range from housekeeping to meal preparation to grocery shopping to giving rides to people who have no family members who can pick up the slack.

All of the services are nonmedical, she says, and "we do focus on the elderly." Nor are clients necessarily spouseless or childless, Mathews adds, although she estimates that 60 percent of her clients have no nearby family members to call on.

The cost is $19.50 per hour, with a three-hour minimum, Mathews says.

Such services, as well as other products geared to independent-by-necessity boomers, may become more popular as boomers age. ADT Security Services, for instance, offers a monitoring service by which people alone at home who face a medical emergency can press a button on a wristband or pendant to call an ambulance or emergency dispatcher.

Ken Budd, features editor of AARP The Magazine, says marketers probably will take greater notice of aging boomers during the next several years, if only because there's money to be made.

People older than 55 years of age earn almost 77 percent of all the financial assets in the United States, Budd notes, while adults 50-plus account for 45 percent of consumer spending.

"I think it's such a huge, untapped area," Budd says.

The aging of orphan boomers even may prompt a further evolution of existing lifestyles. Weiss, for instance, wouldn't be surprised to see the development of communal-type living arrangements in which single, childless boomers gather together to live, either in a sort of multiroommate arrangement or on a single property in which members live in casitas but share communal facilities for dining, recreation and other activities.

"I've heard of sort of experimental communes develop, similar to the Jewish commune (kibbutz) or the communes of the '60s," Weiss says.

Somehow, that seems about right. After all, Weiss notes, "we are products of the '60s."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.