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Should we all take care of our parents when their elderly?


Bear

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What if in some cases you couldn't physically look after your parents?

I'm not talking about being disabled either mentally or physically, I'm talking about not being able to in different reasons. Someone may not be able to look after them for many reasons like:

  • You're way too busy, just like your parents were at the same age. Sometimes they even sent you to a childminder or after school club.
  • You don't live in the same country as your parents. You may have moved country because you wanted a better place or environment to work.
  • You may live too far to look after your parents, for example, you could live in London but your parent(s) live in Edinburgh. Making it virtually impossible to take care of your parents.
  • Your parents may not want your help.
  • You hate your parents.
  • You have a life of your own to develop or control. Looking after your parents will take much of this away.
  • Your parents may not need help.

Just because they're or they will be elderly, doesn't automatically make them vulnerable and in desperate need of care. Take a look at the far east for example. People over there don't regard elderly people as vulnerable, they regard them as respected. My grandpa is finding it difficult to walk, and yet he still manages to live his own life by himself. My grandparents in Florida don't need my dad and my aunt all the time, yes they miss us occasionally but they are perfectly healthy and look after each other when something occurs.

It shouldn't always be the responsibility of the son or daughter to look after their parents. And it's not up to the already hated government to decide whether or not parents need help by their children.

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  • You don't live in the same country as your parents. You may have moved country because you wanted a better place or environment to work.
  • You may live too far to look after your parents, for example, you could live in London but your parent(s) live in Edinburgh. Making it virtually impossible to take care of your parents.

My dad lives in Qatar which is a 7 hour flight from the UK. His mum lives in Newcastle. We always manage to visit her at least twice or three times a year. She suffers from alzheimer's disease which causes severe memory loss.

Looking after your parents doesn't necessarily mean you have to live right next door to them, just that you take care of them and you help them out with anything they might need.

Of course, if you don't believe your parents deserve to be looked after then that's your decision.

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Yeah, depends on the level of care they need. If they become disabled in some way, physically or mentally, then they might end up completely dependent on other people. That's a massive commitment and something most simply cannot afford to do.

If they just grow old without major problems then yeah it should be easy enough, helping them out when they need it and visiting them when you have time etc.

Care homes (at least in the UK) don't exactly have the best reputation, mainly talking about poor living conditions and sometimes dodgy staff. Because of this, if either of my parents becomes somewhat dependant, I will hopefully be in a situation where I can pay for a private carer to look after them in their own home or something, I'm really not keen on having them in actual care homes. It would be impossible to do this myself since I'd have a job and need to be at that etc.

So yeah, all depends on the level of care they need. It shouldn't be manadatory though, as Bear mentioned, there's going to be cases where people simply don't like their parent(s) and wouldn't be deserving of the care.

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