Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

Writer and actress Sandra Tsing Loh has an article in the March issue of The Atlantic magazine called “Daddy Issues” in which she bemoans her 91-year-old father’s longevity because, she says, hiring people to care for him is driving her to the poorhouse.

I added up the costs she mentions, and those alone were about $10,000 a month — a staggering $120,000 a year — for live-in help to look after her incontinent and self-absorbed but otherwise healthy father and her dementia-afflicted 72-year-old stepmother. Loh rages:

My family is throwing all our money away on powdering our 91-year-old dad’s giant-baby ass, leaving nothing for my sweet little daughters, with their thoughts of unicorns and poetry and dance, my helpless little daughters, who, in the end, represent me!