brighid

I would say that is something that should be taken up with the individual institutions and quite possibly the government. Many such places suffer from a lack of staff and funding. Many simply cannot meet the needs of many of their patients. It is unfortunate, but in many ways it is a symptom of a society that does not value the elderly and makes it very difficult to care for the health and emotional needs.

It's rather sad, but that is one reason I work where I do because the pension and benefits are top notch and it will help my family take care of me if I succumb to the illnesses of old age. The rising costs of health care (which aren't likely to get better with the current state of our unprecidented deficit) and the costs of higher education have destined many parents to working, when some would rather stay home for their children. Part of parenting is doing your best to provide for your childrens present and future life, and sometimes what is best is not always "ideal." We all wish we could live in a world and have opportunities to provide our loved ones with the "ideal" amount of everything. Being unable to does not make one bad, evil, irrepsonsible, negligent or otherwise. It makes one real.

Brighid

yguy

From what I've seen of convalescent homes, no amount of funding will make them more fit places for the elderly to spend the remainder of their lives. What you essentially have in those places is a bunch of people waiting to die. They try to sugar-coat it with all kinds of "activities" which fail to camoflage the fact that they are gilded warehouses in which people rot away in peace.

That, at least, is my impression.

brighid

Maybe you are confusing convalescent homes and retirement communities? Surely there are some terrible examples out there, but I think the problem faced in these situations is far more complex then your position appears to promote.

Some places are no better then a warehouse for the dieing and some places are not. I still think the main reason this is that society (including the substantial Christian majority) does not value the elderly and therefore services to improve quality of life are often cut. I do think many problems of "rotting" would be addressed if homes could afford to hire competant and adequate staff (instead of having a 20:1 nurse/caregiver to patient ratio), if state inspectors weren't so few and powerless to correct problems ... Geriatrics is a very difficult field. As a nurse my mother worked it for many years and the dynamics are multi-faceted, heart breaking and complex.

I don't want my mother, grand mothers, etc. to rot away anywhere and I dare say none of them were very good parents, but some people have few choices in life. My mother and my maternal grandmother have both worked hard to insure that their children wouldn't have to make those decision. They have provided for and gave explicit instructions for their care should they ever need that sort of care.

Brighid

yguy

You are obviously not getting my drift. I've not seen evidence of negligence on the part of the administration/staff. I'm talking about the atmosphere in these places. It hit me like a brick the minute I walked in. People just aren't meant to be led around like sheep, to have activities planned for them so they don't get bored - in short, to pass time while waiting to assume room temperature, all the while surrounded by people in similar circumstance, many of whom hardly know they are there.

Ab_Normal

Hokay, I guess I didn't understand what you were saying. You previously posted

which I took together with the "burden" statement I quoted previously to mean that nice kids who aren't fobbed off on daycare will take care of their parents at home. I must have read you incorrectly.

Roland98

Sure, this would be great in a perfect world. Actually, in my perfect world, employers would all offer free daycare so the mom could spend time during her day with her children, and still work. Alas, neither is so.

I think I already told my personal antecdote, so I'll refrain from repeating. If we get to a point where we can go down to one income (student loans make that impossible currently), it still would be my husband who stays home, not myself. Even then, I don't know that staying home is always the best thing. My daughter absolutely loves her sitter, plus there is another girl her age to play with there. My son's a bit too young to express an opinion (just over 1) but he certainly seems happy, and the sitter and her husband both adore him. And of course I think it's been mentioned that not all SAH moms are effective providers. I'm sure we could all think of an example of the mom "unselfishly" staying at home with her kids, only to watch soap operas while her kids play amongst themselves.

Attending regular daycare also has the advantage that they don't fuss as much on those extremely rare occasions that my husband and I are actually able to have a "date," and hire a sitter for the evening. They understand that, even though we may leave them temporarily in the care of another, that we always come back. I've never really had to deal with the temper tantrums that inevitably resulted whenever I was babysitting as a teenager and the parents were preparing to leave (and according to the girl we use for an evening sitter, she hasn't either).

As far as taking care of parents...I've already had to do that to some extent with my mom (who has MS). When my dad threw his back out a few months ago, she stayed with us for 4 weeks while he rested. Though I love her dearly (and yes, she stayed home to raise us), to be honest, there were some times when I did consider it a burden, as much as I tried not to think that way (and certainly did not ever express that sentiment to her). So I'm not exactly sure how the two equate...

yguy

So since we don't live in a perfect world, it makes more sense for a couple to copulate without regard to whether they can take care of a child than it does to wait until they can?

Interesting how your idea of perfection requires others to provide for needs you have created for yourself.

Sure we could, but to what purpose?

That's interesting, since brighid claims that separation anxiety is evidence of a good parent/child bond. You appear to be saying such anxiety doesn't exist in your kids.

brighid

I hope you aren't implying that Roland is a bad mother because her children don't throw temper tantrums or continue to experience separation anxiety when she or her husband leave for work. Thankfully the separation anxiety period does end within normal perameters of development. It ends because, as Roland said, a child learns that mommy isn't leaving them forever and will return. I have found that some children whose primary care giver is a SHP have a much more difficult time with separation and it is very traumatic because they have never learned to trust that their parents will return. My niece is very much this way. She has not been socialized well to other children/people and when she is in group settings she is highly disruptive. A stranger, including family members cannot even look at her without her crying and her behavior (as fostered by her parents choices) is absolutely distruptive to her parents lives. It isn't her fault because this is the way she has been taught, primarily because she acts as if someone just ripped off her arm if she is not attached to her mother's side and it is quite manipulative (but no malicious) because she can turn it on and off at will. It can be easy to tell when a child is sincerely distressed, or simply using it as a tool to manipulate a situation (and the effectiveness of that tool is up to the parent/care giver.)

Brighid

HelenM

It can be evidence of a good bond. But the absence of it doesn't prove there is not a good bond. Such things depend on personality of the child as much as anything else. The absence of separation anxiety proves nothing except that not all children go through it.

Helen

fatherphil

i'm not sure that whether or not a child can adjust to a situation should be used to establish that the situation is in the child's best interest.