You have worked all your life and am now ready to enter your golden years and retire in the Thailand sunshine. Sounds blissful and a chance for many to have their ‘me-time’, but then suddenly they find their Thai partner is pregnant and at 60 or so years old they are going to have to go through parenthood all over again. But is this actually a good thing?
On face value, besides being an unplanned shock, it means that retiree plan goes straight out the window – and you can forget about your trips throughout Thailand as you have a kid to look after now.
The reason too many retirees find themselves with a dependent child to look after is two-fold. Firstly, there is a good chance their younger Thai girlfriend will move their child or children in with the retiree. Secondly, at 60 years old this retiree has never had so much sex especially with someone so much younger than them, and that inevitably leads to a pregnancy.
In a Thaivisa survey back in June 2018 in which there were 367 respondents, only 16% of retired expats that took the survey said they had no dependent children living with them. It’s a staggering statistic. Furthermore, 7% said they had 3 dependent children to look after.
Financially it must be a burden on the retiree and an unplanned one at that.
In some ways, finances aside, having kids in your house could give you a new sense of purpose and lease for life; but even so, this is the last thing the retiree was expecting when moving to Thailand.
The other issue to all this is the relationship itself as less than 50% said they were with their Thai partner for love and 1 in 4 said all they were looking for was companionship. And I get it, as we get older our motives change and we just want to be with someone to share our life with. So what you end up with is a household where husband and wife are together more for convenience (27%) and companionship and yet they have kids to bring up together. If there are also financial issues from the cost of raising kids and the strength of baht reducing monthly pension payments, then there could very well be trouble ahead.
Without speaking to a retired expat with kids I cannot conclude whether having kids for the second time round in life at a time when you should be putting your feet up is actually a good thing or not? Kids do provide love and contentment and life perhaps need not be any more than that.
Let Dan know where you need help and he will send you recommendations and help you get set up
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