Reply #63: It's so hard.

[Javaman]

There was a great segment on a podcast I listen to called "futurecast", talking about the care for our parents.

It talked about the guilt, the shame and the sadness.

It brought up some interesting observations.

Once upon a time in this nation, before there was a Medicaid or social security or any programs available for the elderly, people would have larger families as insurance in their old age. It was assumed back then that the children would take care of the parents when they got older. As we modernized as a society, people had fewer children. So now older people are left, sometimes, with no children to care for them, as a result, the assisted living industry took off.

The concept of multi-generational households are almost completely a thing of the past.

So now it's the exception rather than the rule for children to take care of their elderly parents.

However, the guilt associated with ones "duty" to take care of ones parents still remains. They still are our parents and we want them to be safe. After all they did it for us, right?

There is so much at play here psychologically, emotionally and socially, it's really difficult to describe how it crosses, melds, and combines among these three traits while trying to talk about anyone of them singularly.

There is such a duality in society regarding our parents: on one hand we want them to get the best possible care they can, but at the same time we live in fear that they will become the subject of a 60 minutes investigation. We also, via societal belief, assume that we are bad children if we seem or are deemed unable to properly take care of our parents. Not everyone is cut out to be a care giver, but we are sometimes shamed into being forced into being one.

Then we hear the horror stories from the other side of the coin, where some "ungrateful child" treated his elderly parent like crap. Once again, those of us who do care, feel that much more guilty as if we aren't doing enough.

The over arching issue also becomes one of finances. It's not cheap to have ones parents live in assisted living. Not everyone saved or prepared for old age, so then the task falls upon either the state (where there is no living child or relative) or a child who is not in a financial position to take on the additional task of caring for ones elderly parent.

So much is at play, so much baggage, so many memories.

I really do understand your plight.

On a personal note: I wish we did actually have real national health care. One which provides some sort of financial break for those caring for ones own parents. But you know what they say about wishes, right? :/

take care.