I’m going to live to be almost 100 years old [Bloggin’ on the ETC]

According to this life expectancy calculator, if I get back to the lifestyle I had before I got pregnant with twins, I’m going to live to be 98 years old, barring any accidents or traumas.

Wow. I mean… wow. That gets me to thinking about all sorts of things: long-term care insurance, what I’ll do with all those extra years — especially if I become too addled or arthritic to write, and how my relationships with the younger members of my family will go.

I will say that one of the weird things about having my mother die on me when I was 19 is that I’m really murky about adult mother-daughter relationships. I have a pretty good idea of how I’d like to raise my daughters until they’re out of our house, but after that … no idea.

I’ve observed loving mother-daughter relationships, toxic ones, estranged ones and a lot of in-between. But in the end, these are just observations. I joke about my plan to become the world’s orneriest senior citizen, and sometime late at night, I fret that my children, for whatever reason, won’t call or visit in my old age. But the truth is I have no idea what kind of mother I’ll be if I really do live as long as this calculator says I will.

I know that I should strive not to nag my daughters; that I should give them a thorough money education, because I really don’t want them asking me for any kind of loan after the age of 25; that I’d do best to keep my opinions to myself unless they ask for them — and maybe even then; that I’ve got to let them live their lives, but that I probably won’t be able to resist a guilt trip or two (I am from Missouri). I also plan to do everything within our financial planning powers to ensure they never have to take care of me or their father.

But other than that, the future of our mother-daughter relationships once they cross over into adulthood is wide open.

How old do you think you’ll live to be? And if you’re a mom, how do you think your relationship with your adult daughters or sons will go? If you’re not a mom, I’d still be interested in hearing about how your relationship with your own mother changed once you became an adult, so let me know.