One of the most painful situations an ageing parent can face is when their adult children make it clear they don’t want to be involved in their care, wellbeing, or future.

The reality is that some people are happy for someone else to carry the responsibility.

They may not want to help, visit, support, or even discuss difficult issues surrounding ageing parents. Yet they have no objection when a husband, wife, partner, friend, or professional carer steps in to do the work.

In some families, the expectation becomes that somebody else will pick up the pieces.

The irony is that the same people who show little interest in providing care may have strong opinions about money, inheritance, property, or what assets are worth. Conversations revolve around finances, but not around practical support, companionship, or concern.

Of course, not every adult child is able to become a carer. People have careers, families, health problems, and responsibilities of their own. Nobody should be forced into a caring role.

However, there is a difference between being unable to help and being unwilling to care.

Most parents do not expect their children to give up their lives for them. What they hope for is kindness, concern, respect, occasional support, and the reassurance that they matter as a person rather than simply as an estate, an obligation, or a problem to be avoided.

Equally, some people enter relationships looking less for a partner and more for someone to look after them financially, emotionally, or practically. When responsibility becomes one-sided, the relationship can begin to feel more like a caregiving arrangement than a partnership.

Healthy families and healthy relationships are built on reciprocity, compassion, and shared responsibility. When those qualities are absent, the emotional consequences can be profound.

Sometimes the hardest truth is accepting people as they are, not as we wish them to be. Once we do that, we can begin making plans based on reality rather than expectation.

This presents the issue strongly while recognising that not all adult children who cannot provide care are acting from selfish motives.