Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Question M
I used to be ageist until I did a short stint in a rehab hospital and I was the only young person there. I was seventeen. Most of the people there had about 45-60, even 70 years on me. I talked with them some and a lot of them had family but they would complain that their family did not visit them. I felt bad about that. Then my grandmother went into a nursing home, she's still there. She was so angry that she got put in a nursing home because she owned and maintained her own house for a good 40 years, but her daughters tried assisted living and she just needed a higher level of care. She is going to be 85. She still has her mind and that is what makes it so difficult for her to accept that she is getting too old to take care of herself. It's kind of like having a disability because she wants to be independent but she cannot physically keep up with an independent lifestyle. She does not want to be a "burden" to anyone. I feel like the root cause of ageism is life is so fast-paced and people actually do treat their family members like they are a burden because the life of an old person is a lto slower paced than that of a young person. I feel like older people have earned it though. I feel like maybe this "ism" is seldom talked about because its a source of guilt for many people, just like a lot of the other isms. Of the videos I watched I liked "Once we were young" the most because it shows how easy it is to help older folks out. Really it is just time, once a program like that is established people have options. I am sure that many older people do not have many that they can depend on, some do, but most do not. This video also made me sad to know that each week 30 older people commit suicide. I believe that is a red flag to society. Our older folks need more options as opposed to living the rest of their days out in a hospital because they cannot afford the high expense to live in a assisted living facility or a nice nursing home. I feel like we kind of just forget or dump our older folks into someone else's hands. We need more options. The sad thing is that no one knows what it is like to be old until they are old too.
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I feel the same way about my Grandmother, who at 91 dreams of taking her life. Not because she doesn't have family that visit often, or that she lives in poverty or has really any of the situations we saw today, but what she does have is a lot of pain. She has a chronic illness that cannot be managed. But our Christian fundamentalists who seemingly have all power keep her from being able to make that decision. Isn't that the very issue at heart through out this entire course, "A Feminist doesn't let anyone do the thinking for her" but for some reason society (government) says that it is not for our elderly to decide how the end of their life will come. She could die quietly, peacefully tomorrow with assistance but instead she lives everyday in insurmountable discomfort only relieved when she is completely knocked out on pain medication. Our family would never want to see her pass, but it is her biggest dream right now and one none of us can help her with. That is social injustice.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is an important point to bring up that many families view their aging elders as a burden rather than responsibility. It is I sure an extremely difficult situation to confront a family member about their inability to take care of themselves any longer, and even harder to confront the problem as an individual and admit that you cannot do things on your own any longer. Elder care is a subject that I know little about but feel more and more the importance to address this situation before it becomes not a voluntary choice but decision that is made by others or forced upon by the system.
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