DAYS OF OLD

There is an alternative to Social Security: becoming the sole support of one or more parents. When my father died in 1961, I became the sole support of my mother, who had only a $65 widow’s pension from my father’s Spanish-American War service. During the last four years of my mother-in-law’s life, I also supported her. During that time my wife and I also raised four children. What we have done is not unusual for our generation. The question is, would the current generation do the same thing?

JAMES H. HAYES

Westlake Village