{"id":802,"date":"2010-03-22T21:12:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T02:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2010\/03\/22\/802\/"},"modified":"2010-04-10T16:25:12","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T21:25:12","slug":"802","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=802","title":{"rendered":"TAKING CARE OF PARENTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a good article in the April Atlantic<\/a> by Jonathan Rauch about the struggles of caring for an aging parent (i.e., what Rauch went through with his father, who died this past December). Having been involved since 2001 in a somewhat similar situation (my mother, who died this past October), I wanted to make note of Mr. Rauch\u2019s reflections. He concludes that senior caregivers are still mostly a \u201csilent, invisible army\u201d amidst millions of Americans in their fourties and fifties, most of whom are trying to get by in their own working lives while simultaneously working hard to raise their own children. <\/p>\n

Given the experience he had over the past 12 months with his father, Mr. Rauch, a successful political affairs writer from the Washington DC area, now understands something of the sacrifices that a whole lot of unseen, uncelebrated people \u201cout there\u201d in the cities, towns and villages of America are making in order to comfort their parents in their decline. Now that he’s had a taste of what all these good folk silently bear, Mr. Rauch wants to put them \u201con the radar\u201d of the movers and shakers of our political, cultural and economic institutions. He wants the news and entertainment media to give them more recognition, wants the government and other do-good establishments to give them more information and support, and wants employers to give them a break when their commitments call them away from the daily grind. <\/p>\n

Well OK, Mr. Rauch, thanks. Having been a member of this silent army, knowing how it can twist your life into both emotional and financial knots, I appreciate some recognition from the intelligentsia. I could contribute some of my own practical suggestions on how government policy (and resources \u2013 which are in very short supply these days, I realize) could help create a better system of home care support, for those families who choose not to download their parent problems to an institution, as Mr. Rauch eventually did. <\/p>\n

Should Mr. Rauch have considered letting his father move in with him, as opposed to the assisted living facility solution that he chose? I realize that such a solution would not work in many situations; but given what my brother went through in keeping my mother at home with him until the end, I can testify that the home care support network available in our country is rather weak, that you really have to be willing to suffer to to that route. With a stronger, more organized and professionalized home-care network, the \u201chome-with-family-until-the-end\u201d option would be more do-able. <\/p>\n

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities can be humane options for many seniors; but I still believe that the most desirable situation is for seniors to live with children or siblings or other relatives until the end. Blood relationships are still key, even if American society has de-emphasized family bonds in the past few decades. Unfortunately, I can say from personal experience that our nation\u2019s home support system for the aging unspeakingly asserts that at a certain point of decline and need, home care should be aborted in favor of institutionalization. That is the unspoken, default assumption. With better management and training for home care workers and more organized support from nursing managers and doctors, perhaps it wouldn\u2019t have to be. <\/p>\n

But nonetheless, it\u2019s still good to see some acknowledgment from the liberal intelligentsia media that an old-fashioned notion like taking care of your weakening parents is still a good thing; and that there are millions out there who are still doing it despite the fact that our policy makers and culture makers have pretty much ignored it. I suppose that it\u2019s all just too old-fashioned, too close to Republican values or religious sentiments, for the brains in Washington and New York to applaud. <\/p>\n

Mr. Rauch said that after 6 months or so of trying to help his father, he was near breakdown; he wanted to go back to being his father’s son, and not be his nurse. Yea, my brother went through that phase too. But he gritted his teeth and kept going another 8 years with my mother. Mr. Rauch more or less did what Barack Obama did with his mother when she got sick; i.e., expressed his concern, maybe chipped in some money, but then got back to his world of political involvement. Sorry mom, I want to be your high-achieving son, not your nurse.<\/p>\n

Well, Mr. Rauch, thanks for the tip of the hat, even if you didn’t go the distance quite like my brother did. I’m glad that your father was able to teach you some lessons about humankind, some lessons that your fellow thinkers and writers and policy-makers might do well to ponder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a good article in the April Atlantic by Jonathan Rauch about the struggles of caring for an aging parent (i.e., what Rauch went through with his father, who died this past December). Having been involved since 2001 in a somewhat similar situation (my mother, who died this past October), I wanted to make note […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}