Our culture has completely changed. Years ago, a senior parent living alone would be living with one of the children and be part of the family. Now they are expected to live alone or in some Senior adult home or assisted living, which now costs a FORTUNE. People think "The Waltons" was fiction, but it was not. When a Senior parent loses their spouse or is left by their spouse for a younger woman, it is difficult to "start over" at that age. Most of their friends have passed away or moved. Family used to be everything. These days even a phone call is too much. How things have changed, and not for the better.
As for educating high school aged young adults, hahaha. We don't even teach them how to survive after school (find a job, plan a budget, negotiate a mortgage etc) let alone into old age. Besides, every 17 year old is immortal in their own mind.
At any rate, there are a lot of good ideas being shared; I'd like to see this post continued one way or the other.
CWillie, I love your characterization about the lack of real life preparation for high school grads.
Somehow we coped. Most of the elderly people I knew back then had families or friends that helped, but I do recall other live-in old moms who made life difficult for their kids,l probably not as bad as some of the stories we get in this group, but yes, people did not live as long in poor health. I recall my mom commenting that the development of antibiotics for pneumonia was not necessarily a good thing for frail and dependent elderly people--she said it had been called "the old people's friend."
One, there is not enough money to fund current programs for special interest groups.
Two, elder care and caregivers are a special interest group.
Three, as long as Medicaid is seen as Taking Away Assets instead of covering what is left after a person's assets are used up or the balance that impoverished person cannot cover, programs for assistance will continue to be overwhelmed. People desperately try to game the system to inherit assets.
Four, Medicare and Medicaid only came into existence post 1960. So the Waltons did not have elders on Medicare. They paid their own doctor bills. They didn't take 10 prescriptions costing hundreds of dollars. They farmed on a mountain. A family member might die of polio. Don't over romanticize the past.
Five, unless you vote, don't be so angry that you don't get support. The elders are not voting caregiver help. Caregivers are not voting. Special interests rule.
Six, I'm scared too. My parents are both dead after sudden medical crises. But my IN LAWS both narcissists with serious health issues are 50 miles away and my husband still FOGs out. my diabetic best friend and her 88 year old heart patient mom are a mile away. I believe in helping family. The people who cared for me and helped me with autistic son will get my attention. The narc in laws who moved near us to get husband's help after giving none to grandparents or us for 20 years get back what they reaped.
If we can't reduce personal debt and increase savings and tell ourselves and children no then nothing will change.
However, my siblings and I have outlived our parents DNA, even though we are all under 70.
Night, JimBob.
We need to work on getting great aging in place communities like other countries do.We need compassionate caregivers, medically trained people and mandatory long term care insurance just like Medicare/SS.Then the patient /family has some choice in the matter.It's great to live forever if you have a happy, healthy body and mind but that is not usually the case by a certain age it is one or both that go! I will never go through this......I will jump the bridge before being a burden on someone 20-30 years! Trust me all of us do the best we can!
Please be open to others choices until you have walked in their shoes.
They should have a joyful life and their own families. As generations before did they just passed away earlier and not in such a prolonged matter.
What you wrote started me to thinking about how I feel about getting older. Taking care of aging parents makes us more aware than most people are about how things are going to go. I don't have any children and am now divorced, so I am alone in the world at 63. I realize that my health may hold up another 10 or so years. I don't admit it often, but I am frightened at what awaits me when it does start to fail. I feel the US is so youth oriented that it tends to feel the older people are inconveniences. And alas, the services available often see the elders as cash cows. When I was growing up, I remember that there were such things as estates and property passing down to heirs. That seems to be a thing of the past now, with all estates being paid for elder care. Sad thing to think that the wealthiest people in the US are the ones who are getting the estates, but with long life and healthcare costs being like they are, it is what is happening.
My own little life savings seems meager when looking at the cost of growing old in the USA. It is frightening to grow old in the country. In the old days there did seem to be greater security and comfort with family. Now everyone is so fragmented.
I think of how frightening it probably was for my mother. I was all that she and my father had to help them through their final years. What I hope for myself when this is older is that I can get together with friends and forge a family to help take care of each other. The Golden Girls is a wonderful model for us. Some older people get set in their ways and couldn't do it. I hope to find a few people who think it's a good idea. Money would last longer that way and we would be there for each other. I hope it works out that way, since I am like you in not wanting to be alone and lonely.
In a nearby county there are families where the children are home schooled and the families are God-centered. Families do everything together and attend a lot of church events. It seems rather dysfunctional to the outside world, but the families do tend to stay closer.
I guess what I am saying is if families wanted to be like the Waltons, the family would have to be built from an early age. After the kids are grown and on their own, it is too late to try to build a Walton family.
We tend to think the past was the good old days. However, the history books tend to remind us that there were very bad things back then too.