Legal guardianship often feels like a swamp (and that’s how I describe it in my multi-award-winning book Protecting Mama: Surviving the Legal Guardianship Swamp). If guardianship is a swamp, then elder care is a jungle. Is your bank account prepared for the trek? Even wealthy elders see their nest eggs dwindle, sometimes to zero, as they battle chronic diseases or catastrophic accidents. Do you worry about what might happen to one of your older loved ones, should that person no longer be safe living independently? Well, you should. And you should also take precautions to protect yourself. Particularly if you still have children to consider, you are financially and emotionally vulnerable from both ends of the age spectrum. Do you think that you don’t need protection too? You’d be wrong. Some family members find themselves hauled into court by the institutions that cared for Mom and Dad. Many states allow them to sue for payment from next of kin (and judges will enforce this). See the take-aways inside this book for more information.