by Ted Sherman

Created on: August 11, 2008

I'm reluctantly voting on the no side of this question, although it can't be a certainty in many families. There are wildly different situations that can happen when elderly parents can no longer care for themselves. I'm 83, and have made sure I can always be financially independent. I like to brag that it was because I worked hard and saved my money. However, as with most everyone else who survives to my age, the main reason is that I've been extremely lucky.

I did Navy service in two wars, got myself a college education, and was in and out of all kinds of jobs until I managed to keep one for 25 years and retire with savings and a good pension. I like to believe it was a no booze, no cigarettes, no pot nor pot-gut, and lots of exercise that got me to this age. But, like my career, it was probably mostly a hell of a lot of good luck ... and a wonderfully supportive family ... that got me to this age with brain and body still relatively intact.

I have great adult kids, also pure luck, and they have their own lives to live. I wouldn't want to burden them with some mind- and bowel-challenged old duffer staggering around their houses. This is just my own personal opinion, and I certainly realize there are situations where there's no other choice for adult children than to take the responsibility to share their homes with elderly parents.

Thirty-five years ago, when our kids were young, we decided we had to take my elderly, widowed mother in to live with us. At the time, she was younger than I am today, but the onset of Alzheimer's disease made living by herself impossible. We endured it for six months, and it was hell for all concerned, especially our little kids, because they had to bunk together, share a bathroom with grandmom, and weren't getting the attention they needed. We finally opted for a nursing home. In those days, it cost about $1,500 for a decent one. After some anger and grief, my mother settled down, and lived there in relative comfort for another two years.

I volunteered at my mother's nursing home for four or five hours every Sunday, and although it was considered a good one, to me it was and always will be a depressing warehouse for people waiting to die. I hope I don't get to the point in body and mind where it is necessary for me to become a patient in one. In previous generations, there was seldom a problem of two or three generations of a family living in the same crowded house. First, most people just didn't have the money to live separately.

Another factor was that grandparents were younger in those days, and could help with childcare and household chores. And, maybe most significantly, in the days before wonder drugs, the average age at death was 60, and the still-functioning oldsters were taken away quickly by such diseases as pneumonia. It wasn't called "the old folks' blessing" for nothing. There just wasn't any need for the nursing homes then.

Have you checked out the cost of nursing homes today? The average price, even for the dumpy ones, is $5,000 and up a month. For some low-income families, the fee can be partially paid by Medicare or Medicaid, but the cost is still heavy. Therefore, families must decide what to do when elderly parents can no longer care for themselves. Do they take them in or pay out backbreaking amounts of money to allow their parents to die slowly in the warehouses for the aged while all savings run out?

There's always that lurking emotional problem of responsibility. Do the adult children owe it to their dependent elderly parents to take them into their homes, even if it means daily disruptions to their lives and those of their young children? Reluctantly, I vote no.

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