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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.
Hate to be hopping back on the hobbyhorse again. No, it's not the Hock. It's this:
Most people, except those who work in the healthcare industry or are connected to it in some way, simply do not understand that ~5% of the population are poor candidates for marriage and children. If you're looking at people from 18 to 45, most of that isn't because they wound up being burned in a house fire but are otherwise healthy and mostly functional. No. It's health problems that make people unattractive; you don't see them because they don't get out much. Two percent of people are intellectually disabled, one percent of people are schizophrenic, add in other physical disabilities, autoimmune conditions, and "is just a giant raging asshole" to the mix, and you have your five percent. Most of these people don't get out much.
As for the end of life situation: my parents have made it very clear to me and my younger sibling that they did not want us to spend time and energy taking care of them but rather that they wanted to go into a nursing home. I'd think that in a modern society we'd just adapt to increasing lifespan (but not similarly increased healthspan) by having essentially assisted suicide as more of a live option. I might drink hemlock if I couldn't wipe my own ass anymore.
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