Last fall, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and, seemingly minutes later, my father had some heart problems and ultimately suffered a stroke.
I knew I was inching toward simultaneously caring for my young kids and aging parents. Suddenly, I was squarely in the sandwich generation.
I now had to deal with the terrifying reality that my parents did not have a plan for how to spend their retirement years — especially where they plan to live.
My parents had no retirement plans once they sold their house
As an only child, I have been aware that I might need to be more invested in my parents’ retirement plans, but I wasn’t prepared to feel like their therapist, estate planner, realtor, and case manager all in one.
My father’s unfortunate reality was that he had to retire while in the hospital recovering from his stroke. Like many men, my father struggles to find his identity outside work.
While I was home with my parents during my father’s recovery and before my mother’s cancer treatment, I broached the subject of their retirement plan by asking them about the sale of their home. They had long lamented that they no longer wanted to maintain their home. However, I did not realize how little my parents had discussed what would happen beyond this sale.
Once my mother and father recovered, they moved forward and sold their home in Florida. Shortly after that, they stayed near my family in Texas, in a long-term Airbnb. I soon realized they had no intention of settling.
They have since stayed in 15 Airbnbs.
Their planless lifestyle has continued to create issues
My parents like stability. I know that they don’t like living out of suitcases. They often go to an Airbnb in a new city and immediately contact the host about shortening their stay or finding a different place because they don’t like the area they are in.Additionally, they would rather have a plan, a home to call their own, and a city to set up some roots.
That’s why their Airbnb living doesn’t make much sense to me. When I push them to find a long-term plan, I realize they aren’t even having the conversation with each other.
The lack of actual conversations only came to a head when my father landed in the hospital again while traveling. Ultimately, my father learned he would need extensive open-heart surgery. They ended up going to the Cleveland Clinic and staying at two different Cleveland Airbnbs during their six-week stay, which, while you are recovering from open-heart surgery, is not necessarily the best plan.
When aging is avoided, it creates more issues
Going through all of these experiences with my parents has made it clear that avoiding retirement conversations can be rooted in other issues, like not wanting to face our mortality or that we might disappoint other family members by making a clear decision for ourselves.
It’s not like my parents don’t have a will or aren’t organized, and I am certainly lucky that they have saved diligently for their retirement.
I do not feel fortunate, however, about their lack of a concrete plan. As their only child with children of my own, the uncertainty of their future adds a layer of stress for me. I often worry about their Airbnb accommodations, whether the roads nearby are well lit, and whether they have social support nearby.
I suspect their decision to wing it has been driven by a desire to sidestep the discomfort of planning for one’s golden years. By opting to stick with short-term rentals rather than anything more permanent, they avoid confronting their own individual desires —and the risk that they might not be in alignment.
While I am only in my 40s, I am already working on a retirement plan. I am well aware that my children will have things to worry about; that just comes with the territory of aging parents. But confronting the inevitability of aging and embracing a concrete plan for my retirement is a gift I am giving to my children.
Having honest conversations about making definitive plans is incredibly challenging, but it also has huge payoffs: a season of life rooted in desire and as much agency as this time can offer.
Traveling in a group can be a challenge, and confusing airline policies can make the experience even more of an ordeal. For adults, being separated on a flight is an inconvenience. But for families with young children or caregivers of travelers with special needs, sitting apart on the plane can be a crisis.
For many years, families have favored Southwest Airlines for its open seating policy, which allows travelers to choose their own seats in boarding order. But Southwest switched to assigned seating on January 27 after more than 50 years of flexible seating, joining virtually every other commercial airline. Moving forward, all Southwest passengers will have designated seats and board the plane accordingly.
If sitting together on the plane is important for your family, here’s how to ensure you always get seats together.
What to know about family seating policies on US airlines
Concerns about families being separated on planes have grown so common that federal regulators have taken notice. In 2024, the Department of Transportation proposed a rule prohibiting US airlines from charging parents additional fees to sit next to children under 13. While that proposal has not yet become law, it highlights how significant the issue has become for travelers.
For now, airline policies vary. The DOT maintains an airline family seating dashboard summarizing family travel policies across 10 major US carriers. Alaska, American, Frontier, Hawaiian, and JetBlue guarantee family seating for eligible children at no additional cost, while Allegiant, Delta, Southwest, Spirit, and United do not.
Select your preferred seats when booking your flights
The simplest and most reliable way to sit together is to choose your seats when you purchase your tickets.
During the booking process, most airlines display a seat map that allows travelers to select exact locations. Take the time to click through each passenger on the reservation and assign seats individually. Tools like SeatMaps.com can help you get an idea of the aircraft layout and choose seats with desirable features like extra legroom or window views.
The author recommends choosing seats when you book your trip to ensure everyone is seated together.
Courtesy of Southwest Airlines
Some airlines automatically block adjacent seats when minors are included on a reservation, while others attempt to make adjustments closer to departure. Reviewing these policies in advance can help you choose an airline and avoid surprises after the fact.
Pro tip: If you’ve chosen an airline that charges for advanced seat assignments, you may be able to recoup some of those costs with a good travel credit card that comes with annual travel credits toward eligible expenses. You may also avoid seat selection fees if you have elite status with that airline or if you purchase higher fare-class tickets.
Book everyone on the same reservation
Whenever possible, book everyone together in one transaction. This simple step makes it much easier for customer service representatives to assist if problems arise.
Keeping all family members on a single reservation is another essential strategy for ensuring you’re seated together, unless you’re experienced travelers with very specific reasons for separating your bookings. In fact, some airlines like Alaska require you to be booked on the same reservation with your children in order to be eligible for the guaranteed seat selection policy.
Airline computer systems do not automatically recognize separate bookings as part of the same group, even when the passengers share a last name, and it’s far harder to identify seating needs or make changes across multiple reservations, especially if you need to change your flights for any reason.
Pro tip: If you’ve already purchased your flights across different reservations, a quick call to customer service can help you link them.
Don’t book basic economy fares
Low-cost basic economy tickets can be tempting, especially for larger families trying to keep travel expenses down, but these fares come with significant drawbacks that impact seating choices.
Most basic economy tickets do not allow advance seat selection, even if you’re willing to pay for the privilege. Instead, seats are assigned automatically, often at check-in, after all the higher-paying passengers have had their choice.
For parents, basic economy creates unnecessary uncertainty since you’re far more likely to end up with scattered seat assignments, especially on airlines that don’t guarantee family seating.
Pro tip: If you can’t avoid basic economy, contact your airline immediately after booking to let them know you’re traveling with minors. Some carriers will make notes on the reservation or allow you to upgrade your tickets to a fare class that offers seat selection.
Avoid layovers whenever possible
There are pros and cons for families considering connecting flights. For families with little kids, layovers can offer a chance to stretch in the airport and get some of the wiggles out.
But if it’s extremely important to you to sit together during your travels, your safest bet is to book the most direct route, especially during busy travel periods. That way, you only have one flight to worry about instead of two or even three.
Pro tip: If connecting flights are your only option, do your homework ahead of time to ensure you know which gate you’re arriving into, which gate your next flight departs from, and make sure you budget enough time to purchase food, traverse the airport, and everything else you need to do before showing up to board your flight on time.
Timing is everything: Buy early and choose off-peak travel times
Purchase your flights as early as possible to give yourself the greatest flexibility in seat selection, since the best seats get snatched up as flights fill. If you have no choice but to buy last-minute tickets, contact your airline as soon as you’ve booked your tickets to ensure they know you’re traveling with little ones.
Choosing less popular travel times can also improve your chances of finding good seats together. Flying on Christmas Day itself, for example, can often be easier than fighting the holiday travel crowds the weekend prior.
Pro tip: Many travelers avoid early-morning or red-eye flights, which tend to be less full than routes operating during peak travel hours.
Check for flight changes (even if nothing is wrong)
Even after you’ve selected your seats, it is important to monitor flight reservations periodically, even if you haven’t gotten a notification that anything is amiss. Aircraft substitutions and schedule changes are common and can disrupt previously assigned seating.
For example, if your original flight is scheduled on a larger aircraft that’s later swapped for a smaller plane, you can easily end up in different seats even though your flight number and reservations remain the same.
Checking the reservation a few times in the weeks leading up to departure lets you spot any problems early, while there’s still time to correct them. Airline mobile apps make this process easy, and often allow free adjustments if better seats become available.
Pro tip: If you start seeing inclement weather reports, you can also proactively reach out to your airline to change your flights before you are rescheduled. That way, you may be able to stay at home in comfort and peace instead of spending an exhausting day at the airport getting nowhere.
Show up early and stick to your guns (if needed)
The best-laid plans can still go awry — but having extra time on hand can make all the difference when resolving unexpected issues, such as seating changes due to last-minute equipment swaps.
Customer service agents at the airport typically have more tools at their disposal on the day of travel than phone representatives do beforehand. Calmly explaining the situation and courteously emphasizing that you are traveling with minors often prompts agents to look for workable solutions.
Make sure you read all the fine print carefully before you travel, so you know your rights. That way, you’ll know your options should a situation arise that requires immediate decision-making.
Pro tip: If a problem remains unresolved by boarding time, parents still have options. If the seats you booked aren’t available and a satisfactory solution can’t be found, you can usually request to be booked on a later flight at no additional cost or request a full refund.
After 12 years living abroad in Berlin and then Madrid, I never imagined returning home to Ireland. However, a breakup, becoming a single parent to a young teen, and growing concerns about my father’s health made moving back home something I had to consider.
The decision wasn’t easy. I worried about uprooting my daughter from the life we’d built in Madrid and returning to a country I’d once been so desperate to leave. Growing up in Dublin in the 1980s, a time marked by unemployment, diminishing women’s rights, and a deeply conservative church and state, greatly prompted my desire to live elsewhere. The following decades of living on and off in London, France, Germany, and Spain only reinforced that there was a greater world outside my home country.
Sure, there was no denying that Ireland had changed a lot since the ’80s. But there were still elements of the small-town mindset I despised.
Would my daughter resent me later for taking her away from a life in a more progressive and larger European city?
Moving back home was a difficult decision to make
Like many Western countries, Ireland’s housing crisis was at its peak. Moving back would likely mean temporarily living in my childhood home with my older parents — and that certainly felt like a step backward.
Still, in other ways, it felt right. My daughter, an only child, saw her extended family only a few times a year, and I believed being closer to them would help her through her parents’ breakup and those often-difficult teenage years.
The author loved living abroad.
Courtesy of Siobhan Colgan
Plus, my father, now in his late 80s, had spent much of the year in and out of the hospital. After months of flying back and forth from Madrid to support him and my mother, staying abroad no longer felt realistic.
So I made the decision I never thought I’d make, and we moved back.
The move home surprisingly benefited all of us
Within a month of our return, my father was discharged from the nursing home he had been sent to after a six-month hospital stay. Being there to deal with doctors and carers, support my mother, and share the load with nearby relatives made me feel really grateful. I had always been close to my dad, but now that I was physically around, our bond deepened even more.
My daughter, too, began to thrive. She began building real relationships with aunts, uncles, cousins, and her grandparents. After becoming withdrawn during our final year in Madrid, I now saw her going out shopping with my mom or sitting laughing with my dad; she was slowly opening up again.
Then, four months after coming back, my father died suddenly after a short infection. It was devastating for everyone. But among the grief and tough emotions, I couldn’t deny feeling so thankful that my daughter and I spent those last few months with him.
Additionally, for all my misgivings about “small-town Ireland,” I got to see another side of living in a small community: friends, neighbours, and even locals who just knew them in passing rallied round my mother.
It was the best decision I never wanted to make
It’s still hard to accept my dad is gone, but, of course, life has continued. We now have our own home, a short walk from my mom, and my daughter loves her local school and the friends she’s made.
I still miss parts of our life abroad — my friends, the relaxing outdoor café culture, and reliable public transport. However, I’m building a stable life for my daughter, with deeper ties to family and community.
I will say that when it comes to big life choices, such as moving abroad or moving home, you can only make the decision that feels right to you in the moment. It’s rarely easy, but I’m relieved and glad that I made the choice I did.
