There is a saying that if you want to be rich you need to ensure everyone else is poor. Who would get up every day to sweep floors, wipe bums, clean floors or dig holes in the road in the pouring rain if they stinking rich? I've had many a discussion with friends as to what I'd do if I won the Lottery or the Euromillions. Strangely no one has ever said "I'd really like to get up every day and wipe old mens bums, change their nappies and wash their floors". I admire people who work in the cring professions, but I do wonder how many would go to work the day after they won the lottery?
If we had an equal society, who would be a butler or a housemaid to an obnoxious pig? As it is my daughters and the children of most of my friends will leave Univrsity with a mountain of debt. When I was 25 I didn't have a penny of debt. In fact I had enough money to put down a deposit and buy a semi detached house in Mill Hill. This wasn't money I'd been lent by bank of Mum and Dad. I wasn't unique. I had just got a job and saved up. I knew the rules. Save up a deposit and the bank will lend you an amount which was three times your salary. My salery then was £18,000 per year. over four years I'd managed to save up £4,500. I lived life to the full, never had a night in.
If my kids wanted to buy my house today, if the same rules applied, they'd have to save up £70,000 and have a salary £220,000 per year. Can you imagine any 25year old managing that without severe Mummy and Daddy assistance?
Basically we are the most disgusting, selfish generation in history. We stick our elderly parents in homes so we can forget about them. We snigger about them because they smell of wee wee and we laugh at their disabilities. We've robbed and spent our kids inheritance and we've created a world where they will always be in debt (at least till they die). Well a word of warning. Just one word Euthenasia. Because sooner or later, our generation will be in the minority. Our kids generation will be the majority. We will be at the whim of a democratic society. What goes around, comes around. When they twig that we shafted their grandparents and spent their inheritence, it will be simple enough. Change the law, allow them to bump us off and get the cash back.
Does that prospect disturb you? Well if it does, maybe you shouldn't be voting for the current thieving shower who have created this nightmare. You may think that the bank of mum and dad will make your kids love you. Think again. Who loves the bloke they owe an arm and leg to.
Your kids will always be beholden to you. Until the day that.......
2 comments:
Rog, you shouldn't make flippant comments about putting the old folks into care, it's lazy. In six years working with unpaid family carers I have not met anyone who took the decision lightly.
As you say, mortgages are unaffordable, it takes two wage earners to service the loan. Grandparents are increasingly relied upon for childcare. People are retiring later. Where is the pool of people available to look after disabled relatives?
Even when carers are dealing with someone who barely recognises them, is doubly incontinent, doesn't sleep and is aggressive or abusive many persist. It is incredibly difficult to acknowledge you can no longer cope and that residential care is the best decision. Once someone is in residential care there is huge guilt and worry that the right thing has been done.
If I'd just been through this process and read what you said I think I'd find it really upsetting that anyone would think it was an easy alternative.
Caroline
When I took my mother to A&E in 2006, I was chatting to the nurses. I was keen to get her seen, out of hospital and home ASAP. They were quite surprised. They told me two things which shocked me. The first was that I was virtually unique in not wanting to simply park an elderly relative in hospital over christmas. The second was that it was a relatively common practice for people to simply dump elderly relatives with dementia at A&E without any ID. When I said I was shocked by this, they said I clearly hadn't got a clue what the general public were really like.
I'm sure most people never do such things and never take decisions lightly, but I am sorry to say I totally disagree with the concept that we should never say anything challenging because it might offend someone who is a nice person. if we have a society where no one ever says anything because someone might get upset, we will end up with a despicable society where the people who are not OK cn get away with murder because everyone is too scared to say anything. It may sound harsh, but I'd rather run the risk of upsetting a few people and having an open, honest and frank discussion. I believe that anyone who has a relative in care because they honestly couldnt cope wouldn't give a monkey about my opinion anyway.
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