There are people who need a nursing home. And not every family can afford the best ones. Maybe you are talking about people who never visit their relatives in nursing homes. But just putting a frail relative in a nursing home is often the right choice, and shouldn’t be called “abandonment”.
Oh, I get that - as I mentioned up thread I put my own husband in one at one point when I could no longer care for him at home.
I did, indeed, mean people off at a home and never visited - hence “abandoned”. If you drop them off but visit and keep watch over then you haven’t abandoned them.
You’re fortunate. Some people were raised by horribly selfish and abusive people.
Gotchya. Yeah, there are, sadly, a lot of elders abandoned at nursing homes.
Well put. If you WANT people to treat you a certain way in your old age, you ought to treat THEM in a loving, respectful, generous, and supportive way before you get there.
It may be different once you are in the trenches. A friend of mine had the same sentiment, and ended up with his frail and early-stage dementia riddled mother come live with him and his wife and adult son at their home. She had to be moved from the midwest to the west coast. He would say it was not so bad, her needs were not really that onerous, it was not too hard, etc. etc… But it’s a slowly slippery slope - they don’t just go from “this is okay - we can handle it” to “okay, time to pull the rip-cord and get out of this situation” overnight.
After a couple of years of her living with them, and her condition gradually requiring more and more care, and higher levels of involvement, his marriage was on the brink, and caring for her was literally consuming them all, even with occasional home-help providing some relief. His mother barely recognizing him. No vacations, only Saturday mornings to get out of the house to shop and run errands.
IMHO they did a good job for as long as they could, maybe longer than they should have. But in the end a small infection landed her in the ICU and then rehab, and finally to a senior care facility and out of their home, to their extreme relief.
I know someone who is dealing with this now with parents in their 90’s. It’s rough for everyone and a serious physical ass-kicking to boot when people become near dead-weight. Other options are being explored, but with some mental resistance to moving into a nursing facility it’s a tough struggle.
It’s a real problem, maybe even more so if senility isn’t in the picture and the person is still somewhat mentally agile but so frail physically they cannot take care of themselves. It’s easy to say you’ll be blasé about ending things when it comes to that (assuming you can even physically manage that), but what if you are still very much present and still able to enjoy reading/music/movies/sunsets despite your extreme frailty? I suspect POV can shift rapidly under those circumstances.
Once you’ve reached the age/cognitive state where you can’t survive without full time and expensive daily care, I’m really starting to wonder what the point of it all is.
Yeah - we’ll see if I stay true to what I believe now should I ever get to that point. I’ve spend considerable (too much?) time thinking about how mentally and physically infirm I would need to be before I did not consider myself “me”, and would not wish to continue. What you describe, someone who is mentally alert but physically incapable is a challenge. Similar to if I became a quadraplegic at any time. I really have strong doubts as to whether or how I would wish to exist in such a situation.
I have a hard time imagining myself wishing to continue as the equivalent a quadriplegic - dependent on someone to feed/bathe/transport/clothe/etc me and - I don’t know - dependent on voice software to turn the pages of a book?
And the slope can be hard to discern. But I guarantee that - whatever I thik if I get to that point - if I do not recognize my wife.children/grandchildren, I will have ceased to be a person that I wish to be. And I hope that my loved ones stay true to their assurances to help me out should such occur.
(Or what Dorjan said much more succinctly…)
I know. I am struggling with this now with my in-laws. If we all end-up without memories and not recognizing friend or family, and unable to care for one’s self, what’s the point? My FIL would be horrified if the man he was just five years ago saw himself today. Probably a discussion for another thread, tho.
My parents (the still living ones) very much agree with you, having viewed my step-mother’s mother’s mental descent her last few years into her mid-90’s. They do no want that for themselves. But yeah the shifting sands between mental and physical impairment can get very complicated as we all age into our own version of decrepitude.
Yes, absolutely! Was not my intention to go off-topic.
Yeah, I was not trying to Jr mod you or anything, but it’s a topic we could expand on more deeply in it’s own thread.
There’s still a difference between someone mentally intact but physically very frail vs. someone mentally wrecked, whether or not their physically fit or frail.
Someone frail but mentally intact can often help caregivers somewhat, communicate their needs, may need a way to contact people but not need the constant physical presence of another human, and if nothing else express gratitude. These are small things, but when the situation is difficult small things can make a significant difference.
There are people shut as quadriplegics who required full time and expensive daily care but who still want to live and some of them even manage to hold jobs. Mental state can make a huge difference. For awhile we even had a poster here who was in a locked-in state, his AMA thread was very interesting. Regrettably, he is no longer with us.
Other people, of course, would not want to exist in such a state. YMMV.
My mother has always stated she expected help from her kids if and when she was unable to care for herself when she was older. And in my mother’s case, she’s walked-the-walk herself and cared for her own mother when she needed help her last year of life. But it did lead to a rather uncomfortable conversation when my mother mentioned that her grandchild would care for my sister when she was older. “If I burden my kid with that responsibility then I’ve failed.” Awkward!
My mother-in-law has taken steps to ensure she’s covered in case she’s ever unable to care for herself. But I did tell my wife her mother was welcome to live with us if she gets to that point. And I’m sure my sister and I will be able to help my mother out if necessary.
As far as retirement goes, I think people need to do what’s good for them. If you go to Mountain Home, Arkansas to the local farmer’s market, it practically sounds like you’re in Chicago with all the retirees from Illinois. They come down to Mountain Home because the cost of living is a lot less than the Chicago area. And probably because there’s hardly any snow. Most of my family members who were in California have either died or moved out-of-state because the cost of living is outrageous. When my grandfather died, his house sold for $250,000. The house that was built in the 1950s and didn’t have central air, had its original kitchen, and termite damage still sold for a quarter million.
Folks, enjoy your retirement.
Thread started. I notifed mods to ensure this topic/discussion was permissable.
When was this? Because that’s a really cheap house for California today.
It was a near 60 year old house in Sacramento with the original kitchen, no air conditioner (Grandpa liked it hot), a fair amount of termite damage (Grandpa wouldn’t let anyone fix it), and it’s in a pretty terrible neighborhood. It was a cheap, by California standards, house because it needed extensive work. The new owner bought it to turn into a rental, and when we went by to take a few photos to say goodbye we spoke with him. The termite damage was more extensive than anyone knew and he said if he had to redo it he wouldn’t have bought the house. He seemed to take it in stride though and wasn’t acrimonious about it or anything.
This would have been around 2016-17.
Thanks. Makes sense. I’m in L.A., and any house within a 20 mile radius of me that cost $250K would be a tear down. Insane prices.