The "but who will take care of you when you're old" conversation found me again last Sunday
I've had this conversation probably fifteen times at this point. I know exactly how it goes. I know the follow-up questions. I know the face people make when I answer. And yet somehow it still manages to find new ways to be exhausting.
This time it was my uncle at a birthday dinner, which is a new venue for it. He's got three adult kids, two of whom moved to different countries and one who calls him maybe twice a year from what I can tell. He looked at me very sincerely across the table and said "but seriously, who's going to look after you when you get old?" I said I'd probably sort something out, same as everyone else does.
He pushed a bit. Said family is different. Said you can't buy that kind of care. Nodded slowly like he was imparting something genuinely profound. I thought about pointing out that care facilities exist specifically because adult children frequently don't take care of their elderly parents regardless of how many there are. I thought about mentioning that having children is not actually a retirement plan and that plenty of parents end up alone anyway. I thought about asking him how often his own kids call.
I said none of that. I said "yeah that's a fair point" and asked my cousin about her new job. What actually gets me about this question isn't the question itself. It's that it's always asked by people who clearly have never considered that the answer might just be "I'll handle it the same way I handle everything else." Like the concept of managing your own old age without banking on children is so alien it requires genuine concern.
I'm 33. I'm fine. Probably.