06-23-2016, 09:22 PM
(06-20-2016, 01:20 PM)TnT Wrote: In any case, you certainly have my sympathy. The nursing home appears to be one of the inevitable features of our societal evolution, where nuclear families have become very small, mobility is such that families don't stay around in the same area together, and medicine has advanced to the point where we can keep the "machine" running long after it has any useful purpose.
Back when my great-grandmother was widowed, around the turn of the 19th --> 20th century, she had six grown children to depend on. She wasn't happy about it, but still, was able to move from one to the other for the remainder of her life, not burden unduly any one of her children's families, and not have to endure the cruel, useless monotony of a "home."
Contrast that with my grandmother, a Missionary. She outlived her two children and her husband. We grandchildren all moved away and she melted down and finally died alone in a "home" at 97.
it's a corrupt system with perverse economics. The more that it fails, the more it gets.
Smaller families have consequences, one of which is that there is no longer the fourth daughter generally consigned to a role as a caretaker for one elderly relative after another, never getting anywhere in life, probably having little chance for education, marriage, or even fun. If anyone would like that role in life -- tell me. I doubt that there would be any takers here. If she ever did have a job it would be as a domestic servant.
Nursing homes may work very well for people who fit a certain pattern of life. I'm guessing that the worn-out factory worker fares better than does someone who has enjoyed or exercised some authority in life. A former dentist, teacher, accountant, or business owner might have to be broken down to fit in. That was the problem for both of my parents.
I am already thinking about how I will need to adapt to old age. Having had no children, and being from a small family myself I will surely end up in such a place if I do not simply keel over of a stroke or heart attack or die in some collision involving a vehicle. Having seen Parkinsonism and senile dementia for what they are, I would rather wander into the path of an eighteen-wheeler than end up in one of those houses of horror.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.