There are lots of options available if your parents become unable to live independently: you can hire help to come in, you can move them to an assisted living facility, you can move in with them or move them in to your home. Now there’s a new choice: the MED Cottage. This is a pre-fab structure, about 12 x 24, which is designed to accommodate a wheel chair, necessary medical equipment and act as a generous bedroom space for your parent(s) on your property, yet not in your house. There’s a lot of debate over relegating mom to “the shed” by people who feel that it seems to clearly exclude her from the household she was supposed to be joining. Others, though, including some of those parents cite two advantages over being in the house: not feeling like they are intruding on their children’s families; after all, these domiciles have their own rhythms, patterns and rules and many parents are loathe to disrupt them. Second, they, themselves, are used to living alone; the MED Cottage is their separate, private space. I can see both sides of the argument. What do you think?
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