Daniel Day-Lewis agrees to be honored by Santa Barbara Film Festival

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has landed one of the top prizes of awards season, announcing on Tuesday that it will host the celebrated but elusive "Lincoln" star Daniel Day-Lewis with a tribute at its festival in the coastal town north of Los Angeles.

Day-Lewis has been dominating critics' awards with his performance as Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film, and is considered one of the best actors working today. But he seldom participates in the rituals of awards season, of which a Santa Barbara tribute has long been a late-season staple.

Day-Lewis will receive the festival's Montecito Award, which in the past has gone to the likes of Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush and Annette Bening.

"Daniel Day-Lewis continues to inspire the industry and the public by his approach to tackling the most complex of characters and delivering brilliant performances time after time," said SBIFF's executive director, Roger Durling, in a statement announcing the award.

For his performance in "Lincoln," Day-Lewis may well become the first person to win three Best Actor Academy Awards. He has previously won for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood," and has been nominated for "In the Name of the Father" and (as Best Supporting Actor) for "Gangs of New York."

The festival begins on January 24 and runs through February 3. The tribute to Day-Lewis will take place at the Arlighton Theatre on Saturday, January 26.

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"Game of Thrones" gets expanded episodes for Season 3

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - As the drama grows on "Game of Thrones," so do the episodes.

HBO's hit fantasy series will air expanded episodes for its third season, a spokeswoman for HBO told TheWrap on Tuesday, with each of the episodes running slightly longer.

"Thrones" co-creator and co-showrunner Dan Weiss told EW.com that nearly an hour of extra material will be included over the course of the season.

"There's almost another full episode's worth of extra minutes spread across the season," Weiss said. "One of the great liberties with HBO is we're not forced to come in at a specific time. We can't be under 50 minutes or over 60, but that gives us a lot of flexibility."

It's understandable that the series would be expanded for its upcoming run. The third season of "Game of Thrones" is based on the first half of "A Storm of Swords," the third novel from George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series. At 992 pages, it is one of the lengthiest books of the series.

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Tom Hooper, Mychael Danna join crowded slate of Palm Springs honorees

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Les Miserables" director Tom Hooper and "Life of Pi" composer Mychael Danna are the latest awards-season hopefuls to be added to the slate of honorees at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, PSIFF organizers announced on Tuesday.

The two will join a list of honorees that in recent days has expanded to include Helen Mirren, Richard Gere, Bradley Cooper and Sally Field. Other awards will go to Helen Hunt, Naomi Watts, Robert Zemeckis and the cast of "Argo."

Hooper will receive the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, named in honor of the singer/producer/actor and Palm Springs mayor who launched the festival. Past recipients include Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino, Baz Luhrmann and last year's winner, "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavicius.

"Tom Hooper brilliantly transforms the classic stage musical 'Les Misérables' into a cinema marvel," said festival chairman Harold Matzner in a press release announcing the awards. "By asking his amazing cast of actors to sing live on film, Hooper allows them to connect even further with their characters, resulting in emotional powerhouse performances that are enthralling audiences worldwide."

Danna, who has won acclaim for his score to Ang Lee's "Life of Pi," will receive the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing, a PSIFF honor that in the past has gone to T Bone Burnett, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, Randy Newman and Diane Warren.

Danna previously wrote music for Lee's films "The Ice Storm" and "Ride With the Devil." "Mychael Danna is a pioneer in creating original compositions that are as dramatic and innovative as the films in which they are featured," said Matzner in the release.

PSIFF's Awards Gala will take place on Saturday, January 5, and the festival will run from January 3 through January 14.

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"Zero Dark Thirty" review: Like a really good "Law & Order" - with waterboarding

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It's always a challenge to tell a story where the audience knows the ending. The trick comes in offering a new perspective on familiar events or at least generating suspense in a way that makes us nervous that Apollo 13 might not land safely, even when history tells us otherwise.

"Argo" and "Lincoln" are two films that successfully tread these waters, and now comes "Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow's eagerly awaited follow-up to "The Hurt Locker."

She and screenwriter Mark Boal have consciously chosen to take a just-the-facts-ma'am approach to the manhunt and subsequent killing of Osama bin Laden, and while there's no denying the skill with which they've gone about telling the tale, the results are simultaneously uninvolving and somewhat infuriating.

Uninvolving, to some extent, because the people in this movie are not so much characters as they are plot functionaries, chess pieces that move around strategically to capture their target. Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA agent who, with each passing year, grows more determined to nab the man behind the 9/11 attacks.

There's nothing wrong with this style of storytelling -- giving us some backstory about Maya's taste in men or love of antique cars or whatever wouldn't necessarily add anything to what Bigelow and Boal are trying to do here - but it's a gamble that doesn't quite pay off.

After spending its first half getting into the false leads and call-tracing and all the nitty-gritty of a manhunt, "Zero Dark Thirty" subjects its capable lead character to the requisite scene in which she snaps and barks at her bureaucrat boss (played by Kyle Chandler) that she's so close, and not to take her off the case.

It's a moment that feels like it might have come from any given episode of "Homeland" or any TNT show about a plucky female cop, and it capsizes a movie that, until that point, had been a fairly fascinating examination of the unglamorous sausage-making that goes into a worldwide search for a terrorist.

The somewhat infuriating facet comes early on, as we watch Maya observe seasoned interrogator Dan (Jason Clarke, giving a fascinating performance) torture terror suspects to find out what they know about September 11. The movie indirectly implies that waterboarding and electrodes to the genitals and all that other stuff that George W. Bush's consiglieri convinced him were kosher actually resulted in actionable intelligence, despite the reams of reportage that suggested otherwise.

I believe Bigelow and Boal's after-the-fact denials that they intended to glorify torture in any way, but when you include material like this in a movie that takes such a coolly detached tone in telling its story, you can't then be surprised later when some viewers interpret a filmmaker's neutral tone as an implicit endorsement.

Still, even if the eventual raid on the bin Laden compound isn't as exciting as the film's first half (this is where some "Argo"-style suspense might have come in handy), there's a lot to recommend about "Zero Dark Thirty," which more often than not reflects Bigelow's consummate abilities as an action filmmaker; her no-frills skills in mounting car chases, surveillance and the other tools of the CIA trade get a full workout.

The acting is also uniformly strong, although if you found the parade of famous faces popping up in "Lincoln" to be distracting, you ain't seen nothing yet. Many recognizable performers turn up very briefly for their chance to be in the new Bigelow movie, to the occasional point of distraction. (I started counting lines from well-known actors; "Torchwood" star John Barrowman? Two.)

And even if "Zero Dark Thirty" packs something less of a punch than "The Hurt Locker," it's still a movie that's going to part of the national discussion, both politically and artistically, and deservedly so. Whether you love it, hate it, or have mixed feelings, it's not to be ignored.

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Kelsey Grammer to host DGA awards again

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Boss" star Kelsey Grammer will host the 65th Annual DGA Awards, DGA president Taylor Hackford and 65th Annual DGA Awards Dinner Chair Michael Stevens said Tuesday.

This will mark the second consecutive year that Grammer has hosted the ceremony.

"We're so pleased to welcome Kelsey Grammer back as host of the DGA Awards for the second year in a row," Hackford said. "Last year, Kelsey kept the show (and the wine) flowing while both celebrating the craft of directing and poking fun in all the right places. The audience had a rousing good time and I know we are all looking forward to seeing what Kelsey comes up with this year."

A DGA member since 1996, Grammer was nominated for a DGA Award for outstanding directing in a comedy series, for the "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz" episode of his former show "Frasier." In addition to that episode, Grammer directed dozens of episodes o the series. His directing credits also include "Everybody Hates Chris," "Out of Practice," "My Ex Life" and "Hank."

The 65th Annual DGA Awards will take place February 2, 2013 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles.

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Tattooist gives nipples, new life, to US cancer survivors

Few tattoo artists tell their clients they could win a wet T-shirt contest.Then again, few tattoo artists are quite like Vincent "Vinnie" Myers.

In his shop in a modest strip mall in Finksburg, a half-hour drive from Baltimore, Myers specializes in tattooing nipples and areolas onto women who have undergone breast cancer surgery.

Using precisely mixed pigments, he creates a perfect 3-D illusion of the real thing -- and in doing so, enables women who have undergone mastectomies to feel fully like women once again.

"It's far more rewarding than anything else I have ever done," said Myers, 49, who has dedicated the last decade of his 28 years as a tattoo artist concentrating on post-op cosmetic tattoos.

He has treated around 3,000 breast cancer survivors so far, including many referred to him by surgeons at Baltimore's prestigious Johns Hopkins medical center and other hospitals around the United States.

"When it's completed and they see the final results, most women feel very emotional because they realize: 'The thing is over, I'm whole again,'" Myers said.

Myers, a Baltimore native, discovered tattooing when he was a US army medic in South Korea in the 1980s. In 2001, a friend asked him if he might tattoo some patients who had undergone breast reconstruction.

Typical of the women who have gone under the needle at Little Vinnies Tattoos is Susan, 58, an elegant retiree with a wish "to look as normal as possible."

"I'm doing this for me. It makes you feel prettier," she told AFP the other day as Myers pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and prepared to work is magic.

-- 'There's a huge mental impact' --

"Any complications? Any allergies?" the tattooist asked before carefully mixing pigments in tiny pots and joking that Susan "might win" a T-shirt contest once the tattoo is done.

"We're going to go with, not peach, but more like taupe, a little bit more blue," he said, before smearing a bit of pigment onto Susan's fair skin to determine if he had mixed the exact color for her complexion.

"The perfect reconstructed breast doesn't look like a breast without a nipple," said Myers, whose fee ranges from $350 to $1,000 depending on the complexity of the task at hand.

"You get out of the shower in the morning, you look out at yourself in the mirror, and you have no nipples -- there's a huge mental impact," he said. "It's critical that the visual appearance is as close to normal as possible."

Hospitals also offer post-mastectomy tattoos, but Myers said they are typically carried out by nurses with no more than "a couple of days" training.

On average, it takes Myers two hours to complete his work, during which he will determine the color and size of the areolas of each patient.

"They will be some shade of color on the areola itself and a darker shade on the nipples because that is normally darker," he said.

"Then you do a kind of grey shadow on the bottom side to highlight the top side so as to give it some depth ... using 'trompe l'oeil' to make it look like it's three dimensional."

When he is not in Fricksburg, Myers is often on the road, treating women in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston in South Carolina and the Saint Charles surgical hospital in New Orleans.

Myers reckoned that only a handful of his fellow tattoo artists do what he does, and in order to meet a growing demand, he has already trained two others in the secrets of his unique craft.

Some 200,000 cases of breast cancer are detected in the United States every year. Half of them require breast reconstruction, even if surgeons using the latest techniques try to retain as much of the nipple area as possible.

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Spring/Summer hair trends: five new looks to try

Spring/Summer hair doesn't just have to mean tousled waves or blonde highlights, so take inspiration from the Spring/Summer 2012 catwalk shows and experiment with candy color or victory rolls.

Slicked back
Get the hair gel at the ready because slicked-back styles were all over the Spring/Summer 2012 runways, with everyone from Victoria Beckham to Mugler embracing the mullet-influenced style. Labels including Giambattista Valli, Rebecca Taylor, BCBG Max Azria and Viktor & Rolf also kept tresses smoothed off the forehead for a streamlined and almost futuristic look.

Candy color
Hair color has got bold for this season, with candy colors including purple and pink replacing classic springtime looks such as ombré tresses or beachy blondes. During the Spring/Summer 2012 shows labels including Issey Miyake, Narciso Rodriguez and Thakoon showcased the trend, with the latter painting models locks blue, orange, purple or pink. Models at DSquared2 had pink streaks in their hair, while Peter Som livened up blonde locks with orange strands. Celebrities have taken to the trend too, with Katy Perry and January Jones just some of the big names reaching for the dye.

Retro quiffs
Having already made an impact during the Fall/Winter season, the quiff has confirmed its staying power and will be back for Spring/Summer 2012 after showing up at shows from the likes of Limi Feu and Rochas. While a retro aesthetic dominated at many presentations, Haider Ackerman showcased punkier varieties and Ohne Titel worked the trend for shorter styles. Meanwhile, Jean Paul Gaultier championed the victory roll for a perfect pin-up look.

Futuristic up dos
Cone-shaped chignons offered an interesting new silhouette at the Spring/Summer 2012 shows, with Rochas, Narciso Rodriguez and Issey Miyake all sculpting long locks into the most streamlined of shapes which had a science fiction feel. Meanwhile, exaggerated silhouettes were seen at Fendi with its "fobs" (faux bobs), and Diane von Furstenberg embraced dramatic beehives. Be warned: these styles require plenty of hairspray and close attention to detail.

Experimental braids
Braids were one of the most popular up-do styles on the Spring/Summer 2012 runways, whether in messy fishtail form at Michael Kors or sleek at Peter Pilotto and Danielle Scutt. Low slung braids were seen at Ashish, while romantic plaits were wrapped around the head at Moschino and Valentino. Stars including Dianna Agron have been seen working the fishtail headband trend on the red carpet recently, while Jennifer Lawrence's The Hunger Games alter ego Katniss Everdeen's side French braid has become the subject of numerous YouTube tutorials.

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The Baby Boomer Number Game

There are 75 million baby boomers  who are on the verge of retirement. For the next twenty years, an average of 10,000 people each day will reach age 65, which has historically been the retirement phase of life.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of people age 65 to 84 in the U.S. grew by 3.3 million. While 13 percent of Americans are currently age 65 or older, that proportion will jump to 18 percent by 2030. The current 40 million senior citizens will balloon to 89 million by 2050.

These numbers and their impact are awe-inspiring and a bit frightening. Baby boomers entering retirement age will dramatically change today's business and lifestyle landscape. Baby boomers may stay in the workforce longer than their parents did, both because they need the money and they're not ready to leave behind fulfilling careers. And when they finally do retire, their need for health care and assisted living could permanently alter what retirement living arrangements look like for generations to come.

Work. Americans didn't always aim to retire early. Back in 1880, 78 percent of men over age 64 were still in the workforce. In 1934, the official retirement age of 65 was introduced. And by 1990, only 30 percent of men over 64 remained in the workforce. Now the retirement age is increasing again. In today's era of economic uncertainty, many would-be retirees will need to keep working to make ends meet and be considered fortunate if they can find or hold on to jobs.

Delaying retirement will certainly improve the finances of individual baby boomers, but could also lead to intergenerational conflict. Older employees who stay on the job longer than expected could be perceived as standing in the way of younger workers who are in search of their chance to contribute to society and make a living. And senior citizens who take up positions far beneath their experience levels could compete with students and recent graduates looking for a first job.

As more seniors stay active in or re-enter the workforce, older workers will increasingly report to younger supervisors, which can also create tension if both parties don't learn to effectively communicate with one another. Without sensitivity on both sides and a willingness to work together, conflict is likely and the welfare of the company could be jeopardized.

Living arrangements. Once they leave the workforce behind, aging baby boomers will face decisions regarding their living arrangements that will impact family and friends. In the ideal situation, baby boomers will remain able to cope with the responsibilities of home ownership, take care of themselves, and live safely where they are. But they are unlikely to remain healthy enough and sufficiently independent to go it alone indefinitely.

As they continue to age, a growing percentage of baby boomers will reach the point where they cannot completely fend for themselves. At that time, moving in with family may be an option. But challenges are bound to arise when family members must adjust their lifestyle to incorporate the quirks and habits of new residents. Parents may face scrutiny in how they raise their children, with unwanted input from the grandparents. And the physical requirements involved in caring for seniors can tax the patience and finances of the rest of the family.

When boomers require more attention than can be effectively provided by family members, nursing homes and extended care facilities will need to be considered. For families already challenged due to the economy and demands of raising a family, this can be brutal. Assisted living facilities that provide hands-on personal care for those who cannot live alone, but do not require the full-time coverage provided by a nursing home, cost an average of $3,261 per month, according to a Genworth Financial survey. Nursing homes with semi-private rooms are $5,790 per month, while those with private rooms ring in at $6,390 monthly.

Baby boomers changed the world in their youth and as working adults. Their impact continues at a relentless pace and will likely change our notions about retirement as millions move into retirement age.

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The arduous art of the chocolate taster

First study the colour, then the nose, the structure and taste: as for any good wine, tasting chocolate is both a treat and a serious art, requiring regular practice to fine-tune the senses.

And who better to offer a lesson in chocolate tasting than Pierre Herme, the French master pastry chef?

"You start by looking at the texture," he explained at a recent tasting organised in Paris by the "Chocolate Crunchers' Club" -- a 150-strong fellowship created three decades ago to celebrate a common passion for the cocoa bean.

"I rough it up a bit first -- crushing it to test its resistance," Herme said, pressing a blade onto various parts of the chocolate bonbon on his plate.

Then comes the time to taste, paying close heed to "intensity, acidity, the lightness of the texture, the finish" -- how the flavour lingers after each mouthful -- "and for flavoured chocolates the balance between the chosen aroma and the chocolate itself."

Without forgetting the most important of all: "pleasure."

Five times a year the club's members gather around some of France's top artisans to taste all manner of cocoa-based treats -- from truffle bars to mousses, biscuits, patisseries and ice creams.

The ritual is always the same: each taster needs a small knife, a glass of water and some bread to cleanse the palate.

"The knife is essential, especially for chocolate bonbons," explained Claude Lebey, the doyen of French food critics and one of the founders of the club, gathered for the occasion in a Paris mansion.

"You have to slice the sweets in two, to see the thickness of the coating. It should offer resistance, but should not be too thick either, or it stops you from tasting what is inside."

Lebey confesses to keeping chocolate stashed away in various corners of his apartment so he can indulge in a quick nibble at any moment.

"Hmm, the coffee in this one is dosed just right," he mused approvingly, sucking on a bonbon named "Brasilia", created by Jean-Paul Hevin -- a star Parisian chocolatier with his own stores in Japan and Hong Kong.

"It's a dark chocolate ganache, but I added a bit of milk to bring out the scent of the coffee," explained Hevin, who uses ground coffee from Colombia and Brazil -- rather than instant as is often the case.

The club's expert crunchers sample another bonbon, this one flavoured with Earl Grey tea.

"The bergamot could be a little more pronounced," reckoned one taster. "Yes -- but that's risky, bergamot will easily crush any other flavour," tempered another.

For Hevin, "getting the right dose between different flavours is particularly difficult, it takes months of work."

"Most often I will put the accent on the chocolate, above any other flavour."

But sometimes, on a smoked tea bonbon for instance, he does the opposite: "I am a big tea fan, so on this one I pulled out the stops so you can really taste it. I wanted something more powerful, more virile."

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Should Seniors Live Alone or With Family?

Put Grandma in the garage? Yes. But a garage transformed into a well-appointed studio apartment with skylights and a patio for morning coffee.

Home remodeling for those who can afford it is one answer to a growing issue: How do you take care of family members in their late-retirement and twilight years? And then, a tougher question: When a home solution won't work, what assisted-living or nursing home options are available?

[See The Best Places to Retire in 2012.]

Growth of multigenerational households (mostly grandparents, parents, and minor children, but also other extended-family relationships) accelerated during the economic downturn. Some families shared quarters because the unemployment rate (a 30-year high) forced some out-of-work adult children to move back home. Sometimes it was the senior generation that needed a housing solution because they were no longer able to physically or financially go it alone.

The rate of this change is worth noting. In 2008, 6.2 million intergenerational households resided in the United States. That's 5.3 percent of all households. That number jumped to 7.1 million households, or 6.1 percent, by 2010. The two-year increase marked a faster rate of growth than the previous eight years combined, according to AARP's Public Policy Institute.

Even if the economy improves, it's a trend that looks to stick as families address graying baby boomers who may be facing an underfunded retirement, according to aging and financial professionals.

In the best and worst of times, the benefit of companionship and shared household duties, such as childcare, can't be dismissed. For some families, living together is not a solution to a problem but an exercise in bonding. There are also different cultural interpretations of the social value of multigenerational households. But for many families, finances are certainly a factor in their decision to merge under one roof.

Kevin Young, a certified financial planner with Young Wealth Management in Davis, Calif., sees an increasing number of "sandwich generation" clients in his tax practice. "They're taking care of aging parents and children at the same time, sometimes working multiple jobs to accomplish that," he says.

[See How to Avoid Being a Financial Burden on Your Children.]

Young says some boomers and their parents are still playing retirement savings catch-up as corporate America (and the public sector too, in some cases) shifts from defined benefits such as pensions to market-reliant 401(k)s and other individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Others just dropped the ball and didn't save enough.

Options. George Yedinak, editor and publisher of trade newsletter and blog Senior Housing News, sees an industry boom coming to meet the needs of multigenerational and senior housing. This includes concepts such as Greenhouse Project (modest stand-alone homes that include high levels of healthcare), senior villages, co-housing (unrelated seniors sharing space to reduce costs), in-law apartments, and other communal living solutions.

Yedinak notes that regulation of these housing models isn't currently as comprehensive as regulation nursing homes and other traditional care facilities. Regulation catch-up could bring a mixed impact--more scrutiny of care but also reduced incentive for industry growth.

As for home modifications, those are on the rise, too. "Those living in single-family homes will invest capital in their homes as more parents move in with their adult children. Using home office spaces, basements, attics and other existing solutions will make way for more formal renovations including the 'grannie apartment' as either an add-on or standalone," he blogs. "Unlike additions for bathrooms or kitchens, the resale value of 'grannie' renovation should be discounted greatly. Others may opt for pre-fab cottages or PODs as solutions that can be moved, stored, or re-sold when a senior needs to move to a more comprehensive care community."

The longevity conundrum. Healthcare presents a mixed picture for boomers; active lifestyles and treatment developments are helping stave off some disease, but longer living also raises the odds of multiple serious conditions in advanced years and the need for body maintenance, such as joint replacement.

Some households are able to accommodate parents with physical issues and the care industry is responding with more flexibility, often traveling to see patients. But eventually, no matter how welcoming younger generations are to opening their homes to the seniors, they may just not be able to handle the level of care needed.

The home versus care-facility debate welcomes a whole new round of cost concerns. According to Genworth Financial's 2011 Cost of Care Survey, while the cost to receive care in an assisted living facility or nursing home increased over the past year, the cost to receive care in the home, Americans' preferred long-term care setting, remained unchanged. Nationally, the median annual cost of long-term care in an assisted living facility is $39,135, an increase of 2.4 percent from 2010. The comparable cost for a private nursing home room rose 3.4 percent, to $77,745. At $18 per hour for homemaker services and $19 an hour for home-health aide services, the median hourly cost to receive care in the home remained flat over the past 12 months.

[See Should You Buy Long-Term Care Insurance?]

Aging consultancy Age Wave says some older Americans cling too much to the notion of independence in their own home and don't fully weigh the costs and benefits of retirement facilities.

Based on a study, the group offers a list of five myth-busters that may help families make these tough decisions:

-- My current home will be the best place to live in retirement. Many retirees believe remaining in their house gives them the most freedom and independence. But the reality is that by staying at home, they spend twice as much time doing housework and shopping as someone in a retirement center.

-- My current home is the best option to lead an active life and stay connected. Among those over 80, nearly half report suffering from loneliness--twice the rate of younger adults. Depression, alcohol abuse, and obesity can follow.

-- Home is less expensive. Among homeowners older than 65, 84 percent have paid off the mortgage. Still, a house is expensive. Taxes, utilities, upkeep, and insurance really add up.

-- It would be easy to get any care I might need at home. This may be true. But home-health care can further isolate anyone unable to get out. It is also expensive and can add to burdens on extended family.

-- Retirement centers are filled with people who are sick and dying. This may be the most off-putting myth. Today's centers are not where old people go to die. This is partly because most centers require new residents to be in good health and be able to live independently when entering the community.

Let's talk. Families are challenged to communicate their needs and desires for a housing solution. Cultural differences certainly determine the "acceptance" of multiple generations in a single household, but for the most part, the concept has moved in and out of trend in the United States. Needless to say, it's a touchy subject.

In a Metlife Mature Market Institute online survey of 2,123 Americans ages 21 to 65, conducted from June 29 to July 20, 2011, nearly half--46 percent across generations--believe children have a responsibility to provide financial support to their own parents or in-laws if they experience financial difficulty later in life. For many, this means allowing a parent to live with them if he or she is not healthy enough to live alone without caregiving (58 percent overall call this a strong or absolute responsibility), or allowing a parent to live with them if he or she is having financial trouble (50 percent). At the same time, however, many parents say they would not accept financial assistance from their children in old age.

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