Entry 00 · the ledger, opened

Your siblings won't help with Mom, and you are the one doing everything

You do almost everything for Mom, you pay for most of it, and your siblings still will not agree on who does what or who writes the check. It is late, the group text has gone quiet, and nobody agreed to anything. You drove her to the appointment. You did the pharmacy run. You paid for the grab bar. The sister who holds the power of attorney still has not sent a bank statement, and your brother's last message said she sounded fine on the phone.

This site is a ledger, not a courtroom. It takes your side on the labor, because the labor is real and it is yours. It stays neutral on the people, because a brother in Dallas and a sister in Kirkwood are not villains; they are seats at a table nobody has set. And it turns every grievance into a line item, because a line item can be assigned, split, paid for, or declined on the record, and a grievance can only be repeated.

You are not imagining the imbalance

The Family Caregiver Alliance says discord most often surfaces from the unequal division of caregiving duties, with one sibling generally taking on the primary role because they live closest, are seen as having fewer obligations, or are considered the favorite child. Closest is you. FCA also reports that about 50 percent of caregivers get no outside help at all, and that estimates show 40 to 70 percent of caregivers have clinically significant symptoms of depression. The usual shape, then, with a fix that does not involve winning an argument.

The entries

Eight of them. Each is a question somebody in your family is asking, answered the way a fair-minded cousin who has refereed this before would answer it.

The meeting

• 01How to have a family meeting about aging parents that does not blow upWho is invited, who chairs (not you), the one-page agenda, and the three questions that come before money.

The money

• 02How to split the cost of caring for elderly parents between siblingsMom's money first. Then equal shares, shares by income, or credit for hours. Every dollar has a receipt.
• 03Can I get paid to take care of my mother in Missouri? What is real in 2026Consumer Directed Services, a personal care agreement, the VA. Three doors, three gatekeepers, none of them your siblings.
• 07Keeping track of money spent on an elderly parent, for siblings who will ask laterOne account, one folder, one page a month. The person with the most access has the most to lose without it.

The people

• 04Your brother thinks Mom is fine and won't pay for help. Show him. Do not tell him.He hears Sunday phone calls. You see the pill box. A dated log, a shared folder, and one weekend on duty.
• 05The sibling with power of attorney won't share information. Here is what the paper actually says.The agent answers to Mom, not to you. What the duties are, what to ask for, and when it stops being a family question.
• 06How to divide caregiving tasks among siblings when fair is not equalInventory first, fairness second. Rides and nights need a body; bills and phone calls do not.

St. Louis

• 08Elder law attorney, mediator, or Aging Ahead: St. Louis help when siblings disagree about Mom's careAging Ahead first, then a mediator, then a lawyer, then a referee. Only one of the four bills by the hour.

Three questions before anyone talks about money

Every entry comes back to the same three.

1. What does she actually need this week? Medicare's discharge checklist gives families a plain list: bathing, dressing, using the bathroom, climbing stairs, cooking, food shopping, house cleaning, paying bills, and driving to appointments. Count what she cannot do and the hours it takes someone else.
2. Who is allowed to decide? Who holds a power of attorney, for health and for money, and what it says. Find out before you argue about what it means.
3. Whose money is it? Mom's money pays for Mom first. The CFPB's guide for family members handling a relative's money says to never mix her money or property with your own or someone else's. That rule protects the sibling doing the paying more than anyone.

If one line item is a shift nobody can cover

This form goes to New Plan Care, the paid placement above, and nowhere else. It is not a match service and it ranks nobody. It asks for a name, a phone number and a town, so someone can call you back about hours. If you would rather not type, Call (314) 405-0887.

What this ledger is not

Help at home is non-medical: meals, rides, company, a hand on the stairs, someone in the house overnight, a reminder that it is Tuesday. It is not nursing and it is not medicine. Nothing here is medical, legal or tax advice. Every entry says where a clinical question goes (her doctor) and where a legal one goes (an attorney). Every number links to its public source; the sources page lists each with the date it was checked. Every entry ends with the same one-page meeting agenda, which you can download as plain text. About this ledger.