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I think we're looking at things backwards. The question that society seems to be encouraging is "how are we going to pay people to take care of the old?". The
by logicalmonster 4y ago
I think we're looking at things backwards.
The question that society seems to be encouraging is "how are we going to pay people to take care of the old?".
The question we should be asking is "why are we paying strangers to take care of you when for most people, their children should be there at the end of life helping, showing love, and thanking mom and dad for all they've done?".
There's a significant cost to the direction that society has gone in the last hundred or so years.
> Deemphasizing the importance of family bonds by encouraging government to be the social safety net. This problem will only be exacerbated by increasing the social safety net further.
> Compelling nearly all women into the permanent workforce, ensuring that most families are in no position to be able to do anything other than maybe get in debt to pay a stranger to care for their elderly parents.
> Encouraging women to have fewer and fewer children even while encouraging mass migration to replace the existing population, ensuring that the problem will be even worse the more time goes on.
- s0rce 4y agoDoesn't this require everyone to have children and your children to live nearby? Also, it seems like the OPs aging parent required specialized care which contributed to the high cost, not everyone could provide this level of care.
- logicalmonster 4y agoPlease note that I said "most people", not "all people". Most people should aspire to have family caring for them at an old age as the best possible situation at that stage.
- WarOnPrivacy 4y ago> their children should be there at the end of life helping, showing love, and thanking mom and dad for all they've done?". Speaking to the possible point that kids 'owe' their parents for their upbringing: As a father of 5, I strongly disagree. Fatherhood is, by necessity and actuality, service. Children don't ask to be born; I believe creating them into a position of debt is a poor rendering of that service.
- logicalmonster 4y agoThere is never any forced obligation. The point is that every parent should treat their children well enough that they love and honor their parents so much that they want to do all they can to help when the parents need help. Even the worst psychopath parent has a bit of incentive to treat their children well if they knew that this was the difference between having some comfort in their old age or being forgotten in some dreadful government facility being half taken care of by some stranger who doesn't give a fuck if they lie in a pool of their feces for hours.