On The Time, This Time, of Our Lives

In his essay : This problem will only get worse at Sense of Events Donald Sensing directs our attention away from the freak show issues of the day to more immediate things, to First Things....

By Donald Sensing
More people are living longer than ever and this particular situation will become more and more problematic.

The article is from the UK's Times newspaper. The circumstances in Britain do not exactly correspond to those of the US, mainly because Britain has socialized medicine and elder care. What the judge objected to was the government coercively separating couples when they wanted to remain together.

As a minister I deal with this situation more frequently than I wish I did. Only here in the U.S., the separation is not from compulsion but from necessity. One spouse becomes physically or mentally unable to live at home because of the constancy and level of care required. So the healthier spouse finally accedes to the other being moved to a care facility. But this is always a wrenching decision.

In generations past, this was not a big problem because when someone got to "threescore and ten" s/he was pretty close to life's end. My grandfathers both died about then, one at 71 and the other at 72. No one thought they died young. Today when you hear someone died at 71, you ask, "Oh, my, what happened?" One of my grandmothers died at 76. The other lived until 90 but for her generation she was an exception, not the rule.

This is not the case any more. Both my dad and my wife's are still living. Her dad will turn 98 next month, mine 90 in September. My mom died at 87, hers at 86 - well beyond the expectancy of their parents' generation. My generation, the Boomers, is the first in which caring for aged parents is normative even after we are retired from our careers. I know couples in their mid-70s who are both dealing with parents in their 90s.

I know that "dealing with" is a bad way to put it, but many people in their mid- to latter-70s are starting to cope with their own aging issues. The stresses of that plus trying to look after one or two very elderly parents can be pretty stout. And it is aggravated if one or both parents are living in care facilities....

Read the rest and continue at Sense of Events: This problem will only get worse

Posted by gerardvanderleun at May 11, 2017 5:08 PM