Senior Mistreatment/Abandonment

Courtesy of motifake.com

Today we're gonna discuss a subject that just makes me plain ol' sick to my stomach.  I plan to lay it down well, to where it hits you in the gut, tears up your insides and makes you feel like the really awful people you really have the ability to be, and, may already be.  What are we talking about?  Seniors.  Our eld people.  The people that raised you, fed you, took care of you and helped shape you into the person you are today.  Your parents, for cryin' out loud.  What's wrong with you America, that you would abandon these people when they need you most??  When they reach that time they can't take care of themselves anymore.  Now, since they can't work, can't handle babysitting, have lost their minds, or WHATEVER...now you want nothing to do with them anymore.

Oh, but you sure needed them when your husband left you, and you needed someone to help you through it for almost a year, because it took you that long to get over it, mentally.  It was OK to lean on them when the CEO at your company stole your nest-egg and cleaned out what little you had saved up for the future, then needed them to co-sign a loan for you to keep the bills paid.  It was OK, too, when both of you had to go on separate business trips for 2 weeks and you didn't wanna pay babysitters and you thought of them as being someone that could help.

But now, when they can't even get out of their chairs anymore, or they've forgotten their own names, as well as yours - now you wanna toss 'em into a nursing home and forget they even exist.  SHAME on you America.  How can you do that to them, after everything they've done FOR YOU??  They never stopped being your parents, even when you were bad.  They loved you and helped you whenever they could.  Now you wanna store 'em away in formaldehyde till they rot away and die.  Then you can just pitch 'em into a 6' deep ditch and put a nice headstone on them, forgetting to change up their flowers the following year.  I'm ashamed to be standing alongside the better portion of you.  The sad thing is, there's an awful lot of you that mistreat your elders, in one way or another.  This is gotta stop America.

Of course, kids have a bad enough time respecting their parents anymore, let alone their grandparents.  And parents, well, they're just grown-up kids themselves, most often.  And for those of you just sitting around waiting for the day when you don't have to deal with your parents anymore, but on the other hand can't wait to see what they're gonna leave you when they die?  The way things are in America, added to the way you're trained in the art of greed, it doesn't really surprise me much to see you hangin' over your parents, while they're on their deathbeds, like vultures.  I'd almost have to say that I expect that kind of behavior out of the better portion of you, really.  Just expect and don't be surprised when your kids exhibit the same behavior, when you eventually reach YOUR twilight years.

I'd have to say, though, that the thing I most despise, as far as the general behavior of adult children of parents, is when their parents become too old to live by themselves, and where a nursing home or something similar is really the only option.  It's when you put them there...and then just leave them there, basically and essentially abondoning them.  You don't go see them, you rarely call them, you never have them over anymore, and you don't take their grandkids to see them either, mostly, because if you don't care about them, why should they be excited to go see them?  Where do you think they get that?  FROM YOU!!  You rate your parents as non-important, and it only serves to show your children that they're nothing to give a crap about.  Even worse, is when one parent dies, and the other is just distraught and upset...and when you talk to the surviving parent, you mistake their grief as incompetency.  C'mon y'all.  If you were the wife of your current husband for 50 years and did everything together, and depended on him automatically to take care of certain things...around the house, and out in the world, that person essentially becomes half...of you.  An extention.  Of COURSE you're going to be lost without them in your life!!  No, a little emotional support is all that's needed here, more so than dumping them to the curb.

Respect them.  Support them.  Be there for them.  Give them what they gave you.  Love.  Unconditional.  Imperative.  If they have to be in a home, because you can't take them on, fine.  See them.  OFTEN.  Take the kids. CALL THEM, if naught else.  Show them that they're still important in your life.  They will be and should be, 'til the day they die.

Now, as to the subject of mistreatment, I can't believe I'm even talking about it.  What the hell goes through a person's mind, I fail to comprehend.  How could anyone, unless the parent put them through a traumatic experience as a child, beat a parent...or anyone for that matter, because they can't rightly defend themselves.  This to me is sick, spiteful, and should NOT be tolerated under any condition.  Enough said.  Again, for shame!  Even if they did abuse you in some way, I guarantee the guilt from whatever they did has eaten their souls up and left them empty...and I can almost bet that they want nothing more at this point in their life, than to beg your forgiveness.  Give them a chance to ask.  Talk to 'em, and don't pull the punches either.  Tell your parent(s) how you felt when you were their children.  Get it off your chest, I insist.  Then maybe, if your dad insists on sneering at you and says that, at the time, you deserved every punch he doled out on you, then, and only then, I'd be all for you pulling off your belt and giving THEM forty whacks.  So unless you catch your father/mother chuckling about the way you got put in your place when THEY were parenting YOU, if I even guess that you might be possibly considering giving your parents a return beating or two for the crap you have to go through while taking care of THEM, you can best believe I'll be all for bringing back the electric chair or the guilotine.  Don't EVEN tempt me.

So...in case you haven't caught on to the timing here, it's mother's day.  If she's in another state, CALL HER.  If you're not speaking anymore, make an attempt to speak.  If she's lost her mind, give her a piece of yours.  If she's gone, bring her flowers.  Believe me, she more than likely deserved it.  Don't make me tell you again when Father's Day comes around either.  Try and remember to love and respect your parents.  Then, quite possibly, through your example, your kids won't pull the plug on you while you're dying off.  :D