I agree. Quality of life is the important factor.

Better now than later when there's little or no time to make other plans.

@TomMcGiverin The irony is neither of us wants our children wiping spittle off our faces, we will end our lives in our own way with some dignity if we have anything to say about it. That said ... sometimes there's a car accident or stroke or something and it'd be nice to know someone had our back, especially someone whose back WE had for a couple of decades and some change. But the world I grew up in, and its implied social contracts, seem to be stillborn with both my children and my wife's, and based on others I've talked to, this isn't uncommon.

Our children have generally expected things from us and assumed they could treat us in ways that never would have even occurred in passing to my wife or I when we were young. For example it my lowest ebb of young adulthood when I was living off moldy applesauce to make ends meet, it never for a hot second crossed my mind to hit my parents up to bail me out, and if they had been well off, that wouldn't have changed the picture for me (in fact my wife's parents were wealthy and she never took $$ from them). My daughter didn't live a very charmed or privileged life relative to me, but even though she turns 40 this year and earns a nurse's salary and no one held a gun to her head insisting she had to have FOUR kids or marry guys who earn negligible income, she's always dropping hints that she could sure use some $$. I don't pander to it, but it limits our relationship. And that's just one example.

While we're surely not the first (or last!) generation that thinks everything has inexplicably turned to shit since their salad days, there seems to be something particularly worrisome about the prevalence of stories like this. Combine it with the Trumpocalypse and it's enough to keep you up nights if you let it.

@mordant I'm sorry things have turned out so disappointing with your children. I chose to never have kids, but that was not motivated by any feeling that children would fail to be supportive of me in old age or illness. Social contracts are not what they used to be, whether it's between employers and workers, children and parents, or even between spouses. All relationships are now disposable and it's everyone for themselves.

I wish we had assisted suicide laws here more like those in Europe so I could honestly get the help of a doctor in doing so if I end up needing to do that later on.