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.
Very complicated.
We are inclined to generalize (mea culpa) and base opinions and solutions on our own life experiences.
While the elderly may be in good physical shape - mental deterioration is the biggest challenge. Senile dementia, Altzheimers’ psychoses and depression are the main crises for the elderly and their families.
Hard to overcome.
Not a popular perspective here at Free Republic, aka NormanRockwell.com, but thank you for posting it. My mother had many of these symptoms late in her life - fortunately while living with me she remained somewhat self-sufficient until the last few months.
And unfortunately for these elderly, the economic collapse that is looming will very likely result in a great breakdown of social order, and there simply isn't going to be any kind of support infrastructure for them - government-funded or otherwise. They will be among the first victims of the new economic reality.