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- Member
Sun Apr 20, 2014 1:00 am
Sajahar, your post was very eloquent and moving, but I do think that elder caring has a moral aspect of its own that is fundamentally different from caring for those who are disabled, or ill or otherwise in need of care while still 'in the prime of life' (let alone those who haven't yet reached their prime).
My fundamental point is that the elderly have already HAD a good long life (well, it might have been a sad long life, and I am the first to acknowledged the sorrows that have afflicted my MIL, a widow for thirty years, and her own son dead before her). It's the problem (as I see it!) of those who have already HAD their lives who want yet MORE life, but they can only have those extra years IF those younger than them give up their own 'personal lives'.
Some, yes, like yourself, make that sacrifice willingly, and it isn't even a sacrifice, and I would be the very first to both applaud you and certainly not try and argue you out of the decision youv'e made. But even when those like you want to make that decision, it still is not, to my mind, a 'fair' decision to put upon your shoulders!
I suppose, what I'm saying, though I'm trying hard not to - yet the logic of my original argument is ineluctably leading towards it, I can see.... - is that we (and I do mean WE, as in, 'including me!' SHOULD really die when we get 'old and needy'.....
Yes, 'old' is subjective - longevity is high in the west, and I think premature death is regarded as being anytime before 75 (I think that's correct??) - and 'needy' is certainly subjective, but perhaps boils down to 'how many hours of attention does it require from a carer to keep that 'old' person going'.
But, at whatever point 'old' actually hits, and wherever 'needy' actually occurs, at that point, then expecting someone who has not yet achieved those number of years to keep the elderly person going, does seem fundamentally 'unfair'. That's why I 'translated' years into money....to make that point.
It would seem to me that the only way one can 'justify' being very old and very needy is if, indeed, as you point out - and I completely agree with you on that! - the 'caring burden' is shared out between multiple individuals, whether family or professional, so as to reduce the burden per person.
I know I've made it sound horrribly horribly 'us or them' (or even 'me or them'!)(I don't want to tar anyone else with my own particularly ruthless Darwinian brush!), but would any of us here, as carers, want to turn into carees ourselves? Would any of us want our own children to have to do for us, what we are doing for our own older generation? I don't think we would! (Sadly, though, I think I remember Crocus saying that her own mother, who'd had to care for her mother or MIL, saying just that, ie, that she would never want to be a burden - and yet that is what she had become herself))I think because of dementia????)
I know I would never want my son and DIL (assuming my DIL is a decent girl and not a selfish hussy!!!!!) to have to go through what I've been going through with my MIL, let alone anything worse (as it could so easily, easily be!). I really,. really don't want to buy my 'extra years of life' at their expense.....(but of course, grimly, maybe I'll change my mind when my time approaches...easy to be 'noble' when what you are being noble about is - I trust! - decades away yet......)
I do think (hope!) though, that what our generation is going through in terms of caring for the elderly is going to prove an 'aberration' - our generation just happens to be caught at the point of history between 'the olden days' when it was rare for anyone to live much beyond 80, say, and what I hope will become increasingly the norm as the next decades arrive, which is to enjoy a very healthy and independent extreme old age with very little need for care.
Certainly, my own situation with my MIL is teaching me very, very vividly, that my prime directive, so to speak, is to get healthy and stay healthy, in body and mind, for as long, long, long as I possibly can!
My fundamental point is that the elderly have already HAD a good long life (well, it might have been a sad long life, and I am the first to acknowledged the sorrows that have afflicted my MIL, a widow for thirty years, and her own son dead before her). It's the problem (as I see it!) of those who have already HAD their lives who want yet MORE life, but they can only have those extra years IF those younger than them give up their own 'personal lives'.
Some, yes, like yourself, make that sacrifice willingly, and it isn't even a sacrifice, and I would be the very first to both applaud you and certainly not try and argue you out of the decision youv'e made. But even when those like you want to make that decision, it still is not, to my mind, a 'fair' decision to put upon your shoulders!
I suppose, what I'm saying, though I'm trying hard not to - yet the logic of my original argument is ineluctably leading towards it, I can see.... - is that we (and I do mean WE, as in, 'including me!' SHOULD really die when we get 'old and needy'.....
Yes, 'old' is subjective - longevity is high in the west, and I think premature death is regarded as being anytime before 75 (I think that's correct??) - and 'needy' is certainly subjective, but perhaps boils down to 'how many hours of attention does it require from a carer to keep that 'old' person going'.
But, at whatever point 'old' actually hits, and wherever 'needy' actually occurs, at that point, then expecting someone who has not yet achieved those number of years to keep the elderly person going, does seem fundamentally 'unfair'. That's why I 'translated' years into money....to make that point.
It would seem to me that the only way one can 'justify' being very old and very needy is if, indeed, as you point out - and I completely agree with you on that! - the 'caring burden' is shared out between multiple individuals, whether family or professional, so as to reduce the burden per person.
I know I've made it sound horrribly horribly 'us or them' (or even 'me or them'!)(I don't want to tar anyone else with my own particularly ruthless Darwinian brush!), but would any of us here, as carers, want to turn into carees ourselves? Would any of us want our own children to have to do for us, what we are doing for our own older generation? I don't think we would! (Sadly, though, I think I remember Crocus saying that her own mother, who'd had to care for her mother or MIL, saying just that, ie, that she would never want to be a burden - and yet that is what she had become herself))I think because of dementia????)
I know I would never want my son and DIL (assuming my DIL is a decent girl and not a selfish hussy!!!!!) to have to go through what I've been going through with my MIL, let alone anything worse (as it could so easily, easily be!). I really,. really don't want to buy my 'extra years of life' at their expense.....(but of course, grimly, maybe I'll change my mind when my time approaches...easy to be 'noble' when what you are being noble about is - I trust! - decades away yet......)
I do think (hope!) though, that what our generation is going through in terms of caring for the elderly is going to prove an 'aberration' - our generation just happens to be caught at the point of history between 'the olden days' when it was rare for anyone to live much beyond 80, say, and what I hope will become increasingly the norm as the next decades arrive, which is to enjoy a very healthy and independent extreme old age with very little need for care.
Certainly, my own situation with my MIL is teaching me very, very vividly, that my prime directive, so to speak, is to get healthy and stay healthy, in body and mind, for as long, long, long as I possibly can!
