I was eating my lunch this past Saturday, rain falling with gusto outside, the radio on to some local news station. The half-hour came and a new program about investing began. I was too lazy, and too engrossed with my food, to get up and change the channel, so I decided to listen to the latest investment strategies from the latest investment guru.
I was not listening because I have money to invest because I do not.
I was not listening because I expect some nest egg to suddenly fall into my lap because I do not.
I was simply listening because, and I mean this truly, laziness had overcome me and I could not muster the energy to switch stations to something more worthwhile and interesting like, say, a cooking show (I do not cook) or some snake oil salesman trying to sell me beachfront property in Kansas.
Some sixty-three-year old gentleman had called into the program, and he was lamenting that his investments were not robust like he had hoped, his retirement nest egg was shrinking, and he was quite concerned about the future, one day not so far away, when he would be too old to care for himself and he wouldn’t have enough money to pay for a good assisted living home. He said and, spoiler alert, he did not want to become a burden on his family when that day came.
It’s time for me to sermonize, so I hope you are comfortable.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but children are the burden of parents for eighteen years, minimum, so I’m having a hard time understanding why, whenever this topic arises, it is always looked at as a burden for the children to take care of the aging parents. How about, and I’m really spit-balling here, instead of calling it a burden, we change those words to “an act of love for a family member?”
When I was a little tyke, this being the 50’s, my grandmother and grandfather lived about five miles from us in Tacoma, Washington. Sometime in 1958, my grandfather died, he being in his eighties and frail for years. Upon his death, my grandmother, not much younger and not much hardier, came to live with us. There was no debate about it. There were no arguments about it. Not once did I hear what a burden she would be. It was done because are you ready for it? It was the right thing to do for the matriarch of the family.
Lest you think that is ancient history, impossible in today’s world, I can tell you these two occurrences which have happened in the past six years in our family here in Olympia.
The goat farm, which I have written about often, is owned by Bev’s son, Matt, and his wife, Rachel, and six, seven years ago, Rachel’s grandmother was ailing, the prognosis not good at all, and Rachel and Matt opened their tiny home up to the grandmother and took care of her until she died. They were not rich. They barely had room on that one floor for themselves and child, but they stepped up and did what was necessary because, wait for it, it was the right thing to do, what family has done in the past, what some families still do today.
Last month, Bev’s brother, who is in his mid-sixties, living about seventy miles north of us, was diagnosed with a serious heart problem. He had no wife, no children, and his prospects did not look good. Two weeks later, Bev had moved him out of his rental and moved him down to the goat farm to live with family, a family who could look after him before and after his heart surgery.
Why?
You know the answer.
Do you realize, I’m sure you do, that there are nations/cultures in this world where assisted living establishments do not exist? Where extended family members live with extended family? Where the elderly are revered and never discarded?
Listen, I make no judgements. There are many valid reasons why a family would not be able to take care of an aging parent or family member, but I do not accept that the elderly are a burden for their children. I was raised to believe that family was important and never a burden. I can’t imagine my parents even considering an assisted living home for one of our relatives. It would not happen, period, end of discussion.
A burden? Family?
Get serious and, if that’s truly how you feel, it’s my opinion that you need to . . . well, it’s not necessary for me to give that opinion.
Bill
