This message comes from Organic Valley, a dairy cooperative of small organic family farms that is dedicated to protecting the land and all the plants and animals that live there.

Learn more at ov. coop.

Support for NPR in the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Moan,

thanking the people who make public radio great every day

and also those who listen.

You're listening to Life Kit

from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mary L. There is this painful kind of expected but still

shocking reality in life. When your parents reach a certain age, they may no longer be able to take care of themselves, physically or financially.

Sometimes that moment comes way sooner than you expect.

Cameron Huddleston's mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at age 65.

I was only 35 and we had not had detailed conversations about her finances until she was experiencing memory loss and

I learned that that's a bad time to have those conversations.

Whether you're stepping in as a full-time caretaker or just helping out around the margins, you need

to know the full financial picture, to pay your parents' bills or pay for care.

It's a bad idea to wait until there's an emergency that forces you to have

those conversations because your emotions are going to be all over the place when there's that emergency and it's a lot harder to have a rational conversation.

Cameron's a journalist and her experience led her to write a book called Mom and Dad we need to talk how to have

essential conversations with your parents about their finances. Cameron has a

ton of advice on how to go about this like don't expect to whip out a checklist and get all the

answers in one sitting. I would encourage people not to sit your parents down and grill

them for hours. This doesn't happen in one conversation.

...