Our culture has completely changed. Years ago, a senior parent living alone would be living with one of the children and be part of the family. Now they are expected to live alone or in some Senior adult home or assisted living, which now costs a FORTUNE. People think "The Waltons" was fiction, but it was not. When a Senior parent loses their spouse or is left by their spouse for a younger woman, it is difficult to "start over" at that age. Most of their friends have passed away or moved. Family used to be everything. These days even a phone call is too much. How things have changed, and not for the better.
In fact, why don't we use this thread as a brainstorming thread? Glad I'm Here mentioned sometime ago organizations that were addressing peripheral issues. That's a possibility.
Lobbying, especially with an election year approaching, is another possibility, although I've been through that decades ago and it takes a lot of effort and flexibility as well as time that some caregivers don't have.
I like the idea of seminars, beginning with hospitals, which have the space and resources to host them. The hospital we use used to have annual presentations on cancer, with speakers from the hospital as well as outside sources. It was very helpful, sometimes enlightening. Held in October at a local country club, the scene was perfect for discussions on something as unsettling as cancer. It was a very peaceful setting, soothing to enter and soothing to leave the area, especially after some of the topics discussed.
Sloan Kettering Memorial might be a good national hospital to support and/or lead an effort.
So, who would be the beneficiaries besides caregivers? That I think would be where to start lobbying, at a grass roots level. Nursing homes, AL, IL, SNFs, retirement communities, etc. - for elders. Could we contact corporate offices of some of the national ones, such as Sunrise and Heartland? I guess the question is who besides caregivers has the most to gain, to lend support to this kind of enlightening movement?
And what about for caregivers? Who stands to benefit from assisting us?
I'd like to see some more posts on this. Let's put our heads together and see what we can come up.
I would never want my family to feel obligated to manage me in their home if I had dementia or had poor mobility, that made it dangerous for me to be left alone. It's just not fair. I think I have at 20 more years to make my arrangements, but I'm already looking at the type of places I intend to go, if I have to. And I'll put it in writing, along with my DPOA and HCPOA.
I believe our society created the monster we're currently dealing with, by providing so much medical care to extend lives and so little to improve mobility and function in later life, or to support those who outlive their mobility and function. Medicine allows people to live for years or decades in a slow decline instead of dying quickly of heart attacks, strokes, or infectious diseases. I doubt families are every really prepared for what that extended decline will mean for them.
There needs to be a plan for all these impaired elderly people, so that those of us who don't have families (children) are not left to fend for ourselves in old age, and so family members are not stuck in the trap so many of us are stuck in now. I would like AARP to spearhead a discussion about this, instead of telling me all about exotic travel destinations and how to improve my sex life after menopause.
Sig other will buy a house up north near his children and they will be the caregivers, even though he said he would never have them do that. He just doesn't understand that will happen. I tried to get him to read this website to get an idea of his own future, but since it isn't football related he has no interest :P
How many of us until faced with caring for an elderly parent had ever even considered what all was involved. For example: the cost, the duration, the mental, physical and financial toll it would take on a family caregiver. Getting old is not something our society encourages one to think about. But, it happens. Maybe we need to take the subject out of the closet and start talking about it more openly with our families. Maybe we as elders or near elders need to be more realistic about getting old. I can think of no group more aware of their own mortality or of growing old than those of us who are caregivers for our own aged parents. I strongly suggest you read the posts on the site mentioned by GardenArtist.
I did not plan on being a caregiver at this age, but I am. Yes, the ball game has changed with people living longer. Seniors are looking after seniors, and it is not easy - even as a distance caregiver. My health has suffered from the stress though I do bounce back eventually. Soon I will be looking at a senior's complex with everything from bungalows with services to long term nursing care. The bungalows have room for visitors. My kids and grandkids can come and stay with me - for a short while.
Today we have the so-called reality shows, including Kardashians, Ducks, Honey Boo-Boo and others of that ilk, reflecting apparently the need for people to be frank, blunt, low class and vulgar.
I'm aware there are other shows, maybe some family, but they aren't even on my radar so I couldn't name or compare them. And they don't garner the publicity that the "reality" shows do.
I don't really know how the transition from idealized to blunt and tell-it-all shows evolved. Maybe the idealized Waltons were in fact better shows than the garbage on some of these contemporary shows.
I think the bottom line is that people are in fact living longer, modes of addressing this are still evolving, and in the meantime, there are tremendous social, economic, legal, financial, medical and family relationships changing as a result of increased longevity.
http://www.earlhamner.com/about.html
http://www.the-waltons.com/hamner.html
They were put in the basement, attic, shed, etc, given water and food if they would accept it, "Turned" a couple times a day, and pretty much let nature take its course. There were the drugs of those days, mostly moonshine in some tea with honey, and it was just seat of the pants hospice before anyone had ever heard that term. People in the 30s lived to be 60. Maybe. Now....God help us, 90s or 103?
Hereforyou, I don't write this as a rebuke to your post. Just commenting. This is a good discussion. Thanks for posing the question.
A decade ago my Dad said he didn't think he and Mom would live this long.
I love the example of the Waltons. They had one doctor between them and he made house calls. The grandparents were both sound of mind and body, even able to help around the house and farm. (At least as I remember it) Nothing like the elderly parents most of us (caregivers) are dealing with.
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And what happens is the grown child who use to be able to help care for a parent is now an elder themselves. I am pushing 70, there is no way I could physically care for both my parents who are in their mid-90's. Huge difference being 40 year old and caring compared to being in your 60's and 70's. Age decline is now upon us, and we, ourselves, are now fall risk. Who is going to pick ME up???
There are a lot of good thoughts expressed on this thread about caregivers aging and how it's changed perspectives.
BTW, the Walton's may have been the reality in some families but not in ours. Most of my ancestors go off the boat in the 1850s, so they left their elders behind. Many in the next generations died young; in childbirth, in the bush cutting wood, of disease. Widowed men often married a younger wife so she could care for him in his old age. My great grandmother was sent to live with a family in her childhood to help care for the old aunties... she got the last laugh there as she eventually married the son of the family. In her old age all the family strays, old unmarried bachelor aunties and uncles, lived together. I think we should avoid over romanticizing the past, even those who did live in multi generational families like Walton's didn't always get along together.