What do you think of the OLDER GENERATION???????????

I posted a discussion on how the younger generation mistreats the older ones. No I do not feel that todays youth respects the elderly, nor are they grateful for the sacrifices that the older ones made in order for them to stand around and gripe about how things turned out for them. If todays youth would take time to listen to the elderly, things would run much smoother in the world.

The big thing question is "who should be responsible for the care of the elderly?" That one is very hard to answer really because in some instances the elderly have enough money to be able to afford to be in a Nursing Home whilst others just cannot afford it, and often are not wanted by their children either. Here in Australia, the War Veterans are looked after by the Government, and also their widows are as well. One thing that happened many years ago was that the Government introduced what is called a "deeming rate" for money the elderly have. That is how their pension is calculated actually, so if they can get a higher interest rate than the deemed rate, that is good for them, but it doesn't affect their pension. However if they get less, that is their loss because it will still be at the deemed rate. I might add that the rate is less than a half of the bank interest rate for loans. This was to protect the elderly from sharks, including their children, who took the money without paying it back. My m-i-l is in a Nursing Home as she has dementia and she is well cared for there. Certainly it is not possible for her to live with any of the family, due to our own health issues or where we live. We actually had her with us for about 6 weeks and at the end of that time I was a nervous wreck because she kept wandering off alone. Shortly after she returned to her own unit, she started to burn all sorts of personal papers and photos, because she didn't know what they were. So we organised a family conference with her Doctor etc and agreed that she could no longer live on her own. Also the Doctor agreed that she would be a concern for all of us if she lived with any of us, and the Nursing Home was the best option. So, she is now in one and very comfortable there, looked after and we do visit her a couple of times a year. She no longer knows who we are, so much visiting much more often than that is very depressing. However at the same time, she does not go without anything, because the Nursing Home phone to let us know what she needs, and one of us always makes sure she has it. The staff are always available to talk to us if we visit or phone plus they send the family a quarterly report on how she is going. She is one of the lucky ones though, because we have had friends who haven't had that luxury. One friend looked after her father at home for 6 years and that was really heartbreaking. Our friend's sister would visit about once a month, and she would take a break but if she was gone longer than an hour, the sister would leave Dad alone. Another friend couldn't get his mother into a good nursing home, so settled on one which was just okay. Again, he had no choice as he is a bachelor and as he said he just couldn't bath his mother and take her to the toilet etc. I think it all depends on the country and culture as to what care the elderly get. In some cultures, the elderly are looked after at home by their children. That is partly cultural and also because there are just not the Nursing Homes available. As to whether or not we are grateful enough, some people are but many definately are not. They do not want to see their taxes being used to house and care for the elderly, which is a little bit sad. We have actually told our son that when we can no longer look after ourselves, then we are going into a Nursing Home and this is our choice. I would not want to be a burden on him and at least if we are in a Nursing Home, we will be well looked after.

Some fare better than others, but they are not treated as well as they need to be

I think people should invest more in their children if they don't want to be well cared when old. It is important to make their children to feel responsible for parents and not only vice versa.

We take care of our own. We dont believe in sending our relatives to nursing homes. Looking at the plight of the people at nursing homes, I wonder how cold-hearted their children have to be to actually send their parents there. They are the ones who have sacrificed their happiness many times just to make sure we never had anything missing inour lives. And this is the thanks they get. Sorry this is a very touchy topic with me. I dont understans how people can just get rid of their parents like that. Seems very ungrateful to me.