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In last week’s thread there was extensive discussion on the retirement home employee shortage in the US. It made me ask myself: is it fair to say that elderly care in the US and Western countries in general is based on the unstated rule that you as a frail and elderly person pretty much only deserve to have a quality of life worth a damn if you have loving, caring children and grandchildren living nearby, visiting you regularly and looking after you if needed? That is, whatever system of care that is set up is not designed and should not be designed to basically prop you up and coddle you otherwise? It may sound cynical or too far-fetched to say it out loud, but looking at this issue from the outside, it’d explain many things. I imagine this is a general rule most Boomers also take as given, as they grew up in an age when childlessness and family dissolution/dislocation was much less normal than today.
With the exception of the infertile (or those whose spouse is infertile) and extremely ugly, I really don’t have much sympathy for people who don’t have children.
The assumption should be that unless you either have children (plural) and raise them well enough that they care about you, or you’re rich enough to get the platinum plan, $40k a month type nursing home, you’re going to have an awful end of life situation. But a lot of people are scared of bringing out the stick when it comes to raising birth rates.
Please also spare a thought for those who want children, but so far have failed to find a compatible romantic partner.
Why? After all, given how often we're told how easy that task is to accomplish "if you really want it," then consider how much must be terribly, utterly wrong with those of us who consistently fail at it? So why spare any concern for such contemptible, defective losers. Who do we think we are, to think we're entitled to the spare thoughts of others, rather than deserving only their contempt for being so contemptible?
This but unironically.
If a low iq dude with a fucked up spine wants a middle class lifestyle and gets told "sucks to suck", why shouldn't that attitude extended to all of human existence? This is capitalist realism land, my dudes.
If you don't have something you want, by the dictates of the efficient market it can only be because you don't deserve to have it.
The Market provideth. Interesting way to cut this Gordian knot here.
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