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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.
Everything before "you’re going to have an awful end of life situation" is superfluous. Like how are a few kids who occasionally come and pity you, going to make the slow decay and daily pain of old age that much more bearable? It could be worse, they could take care of you, and you'll die knowing you ruined a portion of life of a still functioning human you love. When my grandma was in a retirement home, we made sure never to tell her that the value of her modest house had long ago been consumed by the cost, or she would have eaten the pills.
Why? I enjoyed hanging out with older relatives almost every week until they died, many people in traditional communities actually incorporate the elderly into daily life, they’re at the dinner table, at the park, in the garden, at the tavern having a beer with everyone else. They’re looking after grandchildren, they’re providing sage advice, they’re part of the family and community. I’m not talking about the last six months on your deathbed, I’m talking about what in many cases is the last decade or more of life.
The typical case for a whole lot of my relatives seems to be that they just stop doing much of anything. During their working years they worked and watched TV. Once social security kicks in they have enough resources to survive and entertain themselves mostly with TV, and that's what they do. If they wind up in a nursing home, they just have a smaller TV, possibly with headphones so they don't disturb a roommate.
I would like that vibrant multi-generational life, but it's not all up to me. Luckily my wife's family is the complete opposite of this.
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