My heartless response is not to have kids if raising them is fiscally impossible. Parkinson's...well yeah, that will wipe out anyone. However, he raised kids who 100 years ago would have been how he expected to be able to retire. Now that net is gone, and...well didn't he insure? I mean I have long-term care insurance which is a huge chunk of my paycheck, but I'm not sure it existed in your dad's time.

I don't actually mind social security, but I think that the arguments against it have more merit that people give credit to. It's just politically untouchable based on old people as a voting block.