Labs4me Asked January 2013
Why does society think we owe our elderly parents?
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I always thought it was an obligation for parents to raise their children to become responsible adults and productive members of society. Responsible adult children move out into the world, financially support themselves, raise families of their own and save for their own retirements. Responsible adult children do not live off their parents. Should not elderly parents be required the same responsibilities as their adult children? Adult children were not born to be the salvation for their elderly parents. Caring for elderly parents is a choice not a debt.
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Show me one person here who planned and planned and dreamed and dreamed of one day being able to care for their elderly, aging parents.
An honor to take care of my Mom? Maybe so but I'm not feeling it. Love her ... just not feeling any 'honor.'
Modern medicine has allowed us to live much longer lives than in the past. When social security was started, if I have this right, half of everyone died by their 65th birthday. There just weren't that many old people.
Before good birth control, people had lots of kids to take care of them if, by chance, they lived past age 65.
In the old days women mostly didn't work outside the home, so they were available to care for the elderly, and didn't have to balance it with a paying job.
Nowadays an amazing number of people live to be 100. Because of social security and Medicare and good pensions, many elderly are wealthier than their children and grandchildren. Our parents had fewer kids than their parents. Most women now have full time jobs and therefore little time for elder care. Because of the economy, it's very hard for a young person to get started in a career, and lots of us Boomers have had our careers cut short. Young people don't get government help, can't find a job, and get called names for it. The caregiving generation is under a lot of pressure.
Then there's the sense of entitlement - on both sides. Face it, we all want what we want, when we want it. IMHO, that's a good thing because we demand and often get better treated by organizations and corporations. If my parents had treated me the way some parents do, I don't think I would be inclined to do much of anything for them.
It's a bad thing, however, when we forget that some things are beyond our wishes and demands to control. Parents have to accept that we have limits. We have to accept that our parents and siblings are not likely to change. Some parents suck. Some kids suck. Lots of families manage to struggle through with love and grace and a whole lot of effort.
If we were Eskimos in the old days, then, when our parents got too old and infirm to work, they would walk out onto the ice floes and die. Compared to that, what's wrong with a nursing home?
My Mother told everyone who would listen that she would NEVER live with her children. As she got older and had health issues, she actually had to live with us and then announced she would never live in any facility but in her own home. How happy can "they" be just sitting in front of a TV all day? Mother would have so much more interaction and activities in a NH but I have a suspicion the other siblings would rather not spend her money in that way.
It is a very touchy subject wherever I go and we talk about our elderly parents.
So, personally I would love to have a loving mother I could take care of for several years. But I don't. So she will go into a nursing home. And I really don't think I should be judged when she goes. It is her wish and she has made no effort to build a close relationship with either of her children. In fact she has some sort of personality disorder and of course refuses to seek treatment. So no, my mother will not live with me. She doesn't want to.
The most basic reason is that, after a point, the children are generally the only ones left for the parent to rely on. The spouse is deceased or too impaired to provide care, friends have died or are also elderly, kids are younger and generally healthier, and it's possible to make a case that they are obligated because in most cases they received some care and support from their parents in the past. So basically somebody has to take care of the elderly, and most of the time there are no decent candidates except their kids.
Now some of the more complicated reasons. Society doesn't want to bear the expense of taking care of the elderly, so "family care" is touted as the ideal because it's seen as free. The actual costs are being borne silently by individuals who are giving up their plans, goals, income, leisure, health and sanity to do the caregiving that saves the larger society from having to think about it (or pay for it or provide for it). The lack of resources other than the family pretty much forces adult children to shoulder the burden whether they want to or not.
Then there's the perspective of the elders themselves. Why do they believe their children are obligated to take care of them? I think it's because they won't accept that they either need to be responsible and provide for their own old age or they need to accept the consequences of failing to do so. My mother wants and wanted to have it both ways: retire early on a meager income, spend every cent that came through her hands from her parents' inheritance and my father's life insurance, but still live on her own in a nice house in the suburbs, with cleaning and maintenance and transportation provided by...well, it has to be her kids since she can't afford to pay anyone.
I personally don't agree that grown children are obligated to rescue their parents from their own failure to take responsibility for themselves, but the system is set up in such a way that it's almost impossible to avoid it (and yes, most people will denounce you if you walk away no matter how justified you are).
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