What happens when an aging parent needs more help than you can realistically provide but isn’t ready for a nursing home or other higher level of care?
For many families, the answer is some combination of adult children, neighbors, friends and paid caregivers stepping in to fill the gaps. A recent news article highlights one possible option: hiring someone to provide the practical and personal support that might otherwise fall to an older adult’s daughter or son.
The article profiles Denise Flihan, owner of Daughter-For-Hire, a company that provides nonmedical care services to older adults. The business helps with tasks such as meal preparation, transportation to medical appointments, housekeeping, errands, and companionship. Flihan became particularly aware of the caregiving challenges families often face after her own mother-in-law became ill and she found herself helping advocate, coordinate services, and provide support.
But the concept behind Daughter-For-Hire raises a larger question for anyone thinking about aging, senior living, or family caregiving: Why has so much responsibility for an aging parent traditionally fallen on the adult children, and what happens when they can no longer manage it?
The tasks many adult children take on
The responsibilities of family caregiving often begin gradually. An adult child might start by helping a parent schedule a doctor’s appointment, pick up groceries, or manage an online bill. Then the aging parent stops driving, and the child begins providing transportation. A fall or illness leads to a hospital visit. Medication becomes more complicated. The parent needs help maintaining the house and lawn, preparing meals, or getting to physical therapy.
Before long, the adult child may be functioning as a chauffeur, advocate, care coordinator, financial organizer, home maintenance manager, and emotional support system … often while maintaining a career and caring for a spouse and/or their own children.
This is not an unusual scenario. According to a 2026 report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving focusing specifically on caregivers of adults age 50 and older, more than 51 million Americans provided care to an older family member in the previous year. These family caregivers had been providing care for an average of five years and spent an average of 26 hours per week doing so. Forty-four percent were classified as providing high-intensity care.
While most of these family caregivers are unpaid, those hours have a real value. A 2026 analysis by the AARP Public Policy Institute estimated that family caregivers provided 49.5 billion hours of care to adults in 2024. That translates to approximately $1.01 trillion in unpaid care.
These staggering numbers emphasize something families sometimes discover only after they are already in the middle of it: Caregiving is work, and it can be difficult work.
>> Related: The Unexpected Costs of Caring for an Aging Parent
The emotional and financial costs of ‘doing it yourself’
It’s understandable that adult children often want to help their parents. Providing care can be meaningful and rewarding, and many families view it as a natural expression of love and responsibility. But love does not eliminate the practical limitations of time, geography, money, or energy.
As the AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving reports highlight, family caregiving can affect caregivers’ employment, finances, physical health, and emotional wellbeing. The challenges can be particularly complicated for people in the so-called “sandwich generation,” who are simultaneously raising children and caring for an older parent.
There is also a financial reality that people sometimes overlook when planning for retirement and aging: Medicare typically does not pay for long-term care services (like ongoing activities of daily living/personal care, homemaker services, or 24-hour nursing care at home) when those are the only services required. (Note: Medicare may cover some care on a temporary basis if certain requirements are met.) That often leaves families trying to determine how to pay for care while simultaneously determining who will provide it.
Paid help offers one possible option for certain scenarios. Rather than expecting an adult child to personally handle every errand, appointment, meal, or social visit, families can pay someone to provide some of that assistance. But that solution also forces us to confront a sometimes-uncomfortable question: Why do we so often assume that an adult daughter/son should be the default caregiver in the first place?
>> Related: Retirement Savings: Planning for Both Medical Expenses and Long-Term Care Costs
What does ‘Daughter-For-Hire’ say about caregiving expectations?
Indeed, there is something revealing about the business name “Daughter-For-Hire.” It captures a role that many adult children (and particularly daughters) are already performing without a paycheck or formal job description.
There’s no doubt that the company’s name isn’t intended to be a criticism of family caregiving. Rather, it highlights just how much our society expects families to take on as people live longer and potentially experience more years with chronic health conditions, mobility limitations, or other support needs.
But there’s also something that can be overlooked when caregiving is discussed primarily in medical terms: the importance of companionship and social connection. The CDC notes that social isolation and loneliness are associated with increased risks of several serious health conditions including heart disease, stroke, depression, dementia, and earlier death. Older adults can be particularly vulnerable because of changes in mobility, health, living arrangements, and social networks.
In other words, helping an older adult get to lunch with a friend, attend an appointment, run an errand, or remain actively involved in their community can be an important part of supporting their overall wellbeing. The challenge is deciding who should be on point to provide that support.
>> Related: The Sandwich Generation: Stuck Between Aging Parents, Young Children
Paid help is one caregiving option … but not the only one
For some older adults, remaining at home with a combination of family assistance and paid care services may be exactly the right solution. A paid caregiver can provide an added, flexible layer of support without requiring an older adult to leave a familiar home.
But families considering this dual paid/unpaid approach to caregiving should think beyond the immediate task list. How many hours of help are needed today? How might those needs change in one, three, or five years? What happens if the parent has a fall, develops significant mobility limitations, or eventually needs around-the-clock care? And, perhaps most importantly, who will coordinate everything?
Planning for those possibilities can lead families to consider other longer-term solutions, such as a proactive move to a life plan community, also known as a continuing care retirement community (CCRC).
Unlike a standalone independent living community, a life plan community is designed to offer multiple levels of living and care within the same overall community. Depending on the community, that can include a full continuum of care: independent living, assisted living, memory care, and usually skilled nursing.
The concept of a proactive move to a senior living environment intentionally built for life’s “what ifs” is fundamentally different than waiting until a crisis forces a decision. Instead, an older adult may opt to move while still independent and establish a home, social network, and support system before higher levels of care may be needed. That doesn’t mean a life plan community eliminates every caregiving responsibility for adult children; loved ones still play a vital role when it comes to emotional support.
It’s important to understand that contracts, services, costs, and eligibility requirements can vary considerably among life plan communities. However, one constant is peace of mind. The CCRC model can shift many caregiving responsibilities away from the family and toward an organization specifically structured to provide residents with housing, services, and care as needs evolve.
>> Related: How to Talk to Aging Parents About Future Care Needs
The bigger lesson: Planning for care before a crisis
Perhaps the most important takeaway is that families need to have more honest conversations about what happens when an older adult’s independence begins to change.
Yes, aging in place can be a wonderful choice for some people. So can moving proactively to a purpose-built senior living community. Hiring in-home assistance can work well for some families, while others may benefit from the built-in support and continuum of care available through a life plan community. There is no single solution that works for everyone.
What can be problematic, however, is assuming that the solution will simply be “the kids will take care of it.” Adult children may live hours away. They may have demanding careers, young children, or health limitations of their own. They may not have the skills (or the desire) to provide hands-on personal care to an aging parent. And even when they are willing to help, relying exclusively on family can place an enormous amount of responsibility (and oftentimes stress) on a small number of people.
The Daughter-For-Hire business concept puts a name and a price on something families have historically provided informally and without compensation: the practical, social, and organizational support that helps a loved one remain independent.
For older adults, that can be a reason to begin thinking today about future care while they are still healthy enough to make senior living and care decisions for themselves. For adult children, it can be an opportunity to have conversations before a crisis occurs … not only about where a parent wants to live as they age but about who will provide care, coordination, and companionship should circumstances change.
Importantly, planning ahead does not mean giving up independence. In many cases, it can actually be a way of protecting it while also protecting the adult children you love.
