Choosing a New Place to Call Home

Since siblings tend to be around the same age, most will hit life milestones together. Siblings will go to college at the same time, marry and have children at the same time, and celebrate their decade milestone birthdays around the same period. For this reason, siblings often remain close. When it is time for you to start looking at assisted living facilities for your parents, chances are good that your cousins will be looking for a facility for their parents as well.

Here are three reasons why you and your cousins should get together and place your parents in an assisted living facility with their siblings. 

It will be a form of home again

Some people classify a residential building as a home. For others, it is who is living with them that determines a home. A facility that houses them and their siblings in conjoining rooms or in apartments next to one another is like being at home. Your parents will be able to sit with their siblings daily, prepare food and have meals together, and generally participate in activities with one another. Reminding your parents of their youth in this way can also make them feel young again. 

Siblings can look out for one another

Even if most of the siblings are still independent and want to live in a residential facility with a bit of autonomy, there may be one sibling or more who needs more help. In a full service assisted living facility, your parents will be able to aid their siblings and get a little bit of extra help from the staff when necessary. Your parents will also be able to tell you if they need more help from the facility or if a sibling needs some extra medical care regularly. Having brothers and sisters look out for one another can keep everyone safe and healthy. 

Shared apartments mean less financial stress

It is common for some siblings to be more financially set than others of their siblings. Living together in a facility will allow those who can afford it easily to split costs with those who are unable to afford to live on their own in old age. For assisted living facilities that offer homes or condos, having senior siblings live together will make life financially easier, especially on their children. You and your cousins can get together and divide the cost of the living space into percentages, based on income. Being able to divide the cost of care will be less of a burden on each family member individually and everyone can have a good standard of care.