I recently heard an influencer say that younger people should not be expected to take care of their parents—and that older adults should have planned better.

I understand the first part. No one should be drafted into giving up their health, livelihood, family life, or future because a relative needs care. Adult children are allowed to have limits. They are allowed to say what they can and cannot do.

But “you should have planned better” makes a complicated human reality sound like a personal failure. Illness, disability, dementia, and aging do not always follow a schedule. Planning can help families prepare, but it cannot guarantee that care will be affordable, available, or manageable for one person to provide.

And the need does not disappear when a family member cannot meet it.

This is already happening across generations.

The 2025 Caregiving in the U.S. report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimates that about 63 million Americans provide ongoing care to adults or children with a medical condition or disability—roughly one in four adults. About one in three family caregivers is under 50.

Among caregivers ages 18 to 49, 49 percent say their main adult care recipient is a parent or parent-in-law. And 47 percent of caregivers under 50 are also caring for a child under 18 at home while caring for an adult.

These are not abstract numbers. They are people working jobs, raising children, caring for parents, and trying to make decisions with limited time, money, and help.

Boundaries and care can both matter.

This should not become a contest between generations. Younger adults should not be shamed into becoming round-the-clock caregivers. Older adults should not be treated as if needing help means they failed to plan or deserve to be left alone.

Families can talk honestly about what each person is willing and able to do. Some may help with appointments or paperwork. Some may provide hands-on care. Others may live far away, have their own health needs, work schedules, children, or relationships that make direct care impossible. Those limits are real. So are the needs of the person who requires care.

If family cannot provide the care, who will—and will that care be safe, affordable, and available?

Care cannot be a private family problem alone.

Families need choices beyond “do everything yourself” or “hope a crisis leads to help.” That means supporting a range of care: affordable help at home and in the community, respite for family caregivers, clear guidance and training, paid care workers who can earn a living, and residential care for people who need it.

Policymakers have a role in making those options understandable, reachable, and dependable. Employers and communities do, too. Families should be part of care planning, but the entire responsibility cannot rest on whichever relative is nearest, most available, or least able to say no.

Our question to elected leaders is simple: when a family cannot provide the care, what reliable options will be there? How will people find them, afford them, and know they are safe?

No one is entitled to another person’s unlimited unpaid labor. And no one should be abandoned because their family cannot provide it. We can respect boundaries and still insist on a care system that treats people with dignity.

That is the conversation we want to keep having—plainly, respectfully, and with the people living it at the table.

Caregiving, calmly organized. Advocacy, grounded in real life.

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