With how long people are living, you have 70+ year old “children” trying to take care of 90+ year old parents.
I acknowledge that there are a fair number of 70+ year old people who are hale and hearty, but many are not. They would not have the physical strength and stamina to render round the clock care to a 90+ year old parent.
You could do down a generation or two and try to tap the 50+ year old grandchildren or the 30+ year old great-grandchildren. But they have their own set of responsibilities (full time jobs and rearing children) and precious few extended families live in proximity to each other.
I fully understand Chavez’ points but have no idea what the solution is.
Good points and question.
There are some private companies that provide qualified, nursing/daily care for the home-bound, frail elderly.
It is probably quite expensive - but a better alternative than warehousing parents in nursing homes.
For elderly parents who have several adult, working children - they could pool their resources and rotate living arrangements. Workable- if they ‘plan ahead’.
Linda Chavez could afford it.
The current U.S. life expectancy is 80, but I thoroughly expect it to rise as long as the quality of medicine improves (unless obesity and being overweight kills off many before they get there, which is possible, as nearly 70% of our population is overfat). The average age of first time mothers is 25 years old, meaning that even at 80 years old, their eldest child (in general) is under 55. So, you’re example of 90 year olds running around with 70+ year old children is an extremely, extremely, rare example. 85 years olds with 65 year old children is a stretch of logic, but not unimaginable, but it would still be an outlier. People had children, younger, 60 years, ago, so there is a little variability, but the example you gave is highly, highly, illogical.
Rather than focus on the tiny group of virtually impossible cases you presented, we can discuss the far more plausible 75-80 year olds with 45-55 year old children and 20-30 year old grandchildren. They could all contribute to taking care of their progenitors, either financially OR physically.
“I fully understand Chavez’ points but have no idea what the solution is.”
I do, it’s get government out of people’s lives, out of the “retirement” (actually it’s distribution of wealth), out of medicine, and out of education. I cannot understand why people choose to believe the lie that Government does ANYTHING well. Without government medical redistribution, and cronyism, the cost of medical care would be a mere fraction of what it is today. Without the government theft of wealth, people could save and pay for their own care in their later years (as another poster mentioned). Without government regulation at ALL levels, people could make money from their ingenuity, and from home. Government NEVER makes anything better, especially Federal Government, which is why it was limited in it’s function to only 20 some odd functions by the very Founders of this nation. NONE of them are involved in theft to “care” for the elderly. And THAT is precisely the problem, people are always expecting someone else to be forced to pay for them. Charity is Godly, theft is anything but. People once upon a time cared for each other and pulled together. That will happen less and less as long as people look to unelected czars and elected thieves to steal from others to provide them with security.
See, you’ve outlined the situation exactly It’s not as cut and dried as people make it out.
I’m in my eearly 40’s and already disabled. My other is 21 years older than me. I’m an only child. Where are we going to be in 20 years if my mom is seriously infirm? I won’t be able to do it. I’ll probably be in worse shape than she’s in.
One of the problems is that Boomers simply didn’t have enough children. Back when having 6-8 kids was the norm, caring for ‘mom’ was a lot less of a burden. You had multiple people who could share the load - both the physical and financial.
The other problem is that not all of these elderly become sweet, loving, docile people in their old age. My own grandmother has become angry, paranoid and abusive. She can’t take care of herself, but she’ll physically beat anyone out of her apartment with her cane who dares try to help her clean. (Frail my@$$. An 86 year old woman can do a lot of damage with a cane.) She’s confused, so she loses things then accuses everyone of stealing from her. (And I mean seriously accuses - even calling the police - when she can’t find things like her hand lotion. It gets ‘stuck’ in her head and she won’t let it go, even after you find it and give it back to her.) She’s a hoarder and won’t let anyone take out her garbage. (It’s all important and needs to be saved - even adult diapers.)
So far, we can’t find a facility that’ll accept her. The only one who’s considering it would have to heavily medicate her.
And she refuses to go.
So what do you do with a physically violent, emotionally abusive, confused, angry person who can’t take care of themselves? We’ve already decided that she can’t stay with anyone with children. We won’t have our children abused by anyone - even family.
Our family needs help. So where do we turn? We can’t afford to pay for it ourselves.
Yup. We have to turn to the government. Nobody wants to have her committed - but she beats off the home nurses and maids. She won’t even let her own sons and daughters help her.
The idea of taking care of a frail, sweet granny is very Norman Rockwell. But the reality of an aging mind can be a lot more horrific.
(My family resorts to dark humor for times like these. Right now, the joke that keeps us going is; “The thing about going insane is that *you* feel fine. In your mind, everyone around you is crazy! *SHE’S* not suffering in the least!”)
We do not have the solutions to these problems.