Quote:
Originally Posted by AGDee
I think that most people still see it as their responsibility to care for their parents. However, it is much more common to live further away from your family as well. "Back in the day" people didn't move far away from their home towns so they had frequent contact. Now, a lot of retired parents move out of state and children don't usually stay in the area where they grew up because of lack of opportunities. My dad moved to Florida and my brother moved to Alabama and I am stranded here in the frozen wasteland of Michigan while they enjoy their mild winters in the South. Oops, didn't mean to vent my resentment here  But yeah, they abandoned me for the mild winters and year round golfing <sigh>
I do think, in general, that we do not honor and respect our elderly as they do in many cultures. We see getting old as a bad thing and don't listen to the wisdom of the elderly, forgetting that they've already lived through everything that we're trying to cope with in our own lives. However, every single person I know tries their hardest to care for their parents. I know that when I was caring for my mom in her last months with us, I did have the thought that I was role modeling for my own kids how to treat *their* mother! That's all a moot point with this guy because he didn't have any immediate family left. It definitely is an argument for having kids!
There is an old saying "Be nice to your children. They are the ones who will be picking out your nursing home."
I don't know what society's responsibility is in a case like this. It seems like, in January in Michigan, the electric company could wait a few months before shutting off the electricity OR get the person set up with assistance. It would be to their benefit to get them set up with assistance because then they would get the bill paid. It's even possible that the poor guy didn't have the cognition to pay his bills or something. Meaning, he may have had the money but didn't remember that he didn't pay, didn't have stamps.. who knows? |
Speaking for the entire south, we'd love to have you too. We have health care industries and Alpha Gamma Delta chapters. Just saying.
It seems like we can all say we have a responsibility in these cases. It's just hard to figure out how to deliver the services people need or even figuring out what they need if they feel that they don't want to ask or don't know who to ask.
As far as my own family, there's been a history of caring for people and assisting them in their homes until they eventually basically got sick enough to go in the hospital and not come out. But as you said, all these cases were in the same town.
Maybe I was being too hard on people earlier. Maybe it's just the times I've heard of people wanting to put their parents in a medicaid supported home, it made such an impression.
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