My Parents Can’t Afford to Retire Early, and I’m Terrified They’ll Have to Start Working Again
Not everyone can, or should, go back to work
The line at Trader Joe’s wrapped around the store that morning. I sized up the queue from inside my mom’s car, bug-eyed, sweating, contemplating whether joining the throng was worth the risk. It wasn’t the rain that thwarted me. It was the lack of distance between many of the shoppers who were waiting to step into the store. Some of them couldn’t have been standing more than three or four feet apart from one another. Too dangerous, I decided. I can’t take that chance.
So I drove home, empty-handed and sad. My folks would understand. Maybe we could cook some sort of pasta dish with herbs and frozen veggies for dinner, and I’d try Trader Joe’s again the next day, going early and staking out, as if I were waiting in line for Nine Inch Nails tickets. Maybe that would work.
It was not always going to be like this. Back in early March, my pandemic plan was to self-isolate at my apartment in Boston until the crisis was over. I hadn’t really considered going home. Like many people in their twenties and thirties, I didn’t want to risk getting my folks sick. My dad is 72; my mom is 65 — as senior citizens, they are both in one of the most vulnerable demographics.
