Caring for elderly parents isn’t a burden, it’s a duty and privilege
As Sheila Hancock, 85, reveals she’s chosen a care home so her daughters aren’t ‘lumbered’, our columnist passionately argues ...
She is one of my favourite actresses — a perennial star whose warmth and intelligence shine through in her face. So I was just a little sad to read that, at 85, Sheila hancock has announced she has already chosen a care home in case she gets ill, as she doesn’t want her two daughters ‘to be lumbered in any way with looking after me’.
Lumbered? Isn’t that rather a grim word for the love and duty that should be the backbone of family life?
Believe me, I understand Sheila hancock’s reasons for holding this view. Revealing in an interview that she is suddenly feeling her age (in spite of currently performing eight times a week on a West end stage!) she went on: ‘I had two grannies living with us when we were little girls and I saw what a burden it was for my mother . . . There were constant rows between these old ladies and my poor mum. how she bore it, I don’t know.’
With that experience in mind, Sheila went on to say that she would never move in with a family member if she became sick or needy. ‘Your daughters — they have their own lives. They can’t be bothered with some boring old fart who’s baking,’ she added.
Now, there is nothing wrong with such plain speaking and many will find Ms hancock’s honesty refreshing. Yet, when I heard her words, I wondered how she can feel so sure her mother thought of caring for those two old ladies as a ‘burden’?
And how does she know that to look after their beloved mother would be viewed as a boring chore by her own daughters? Why, they might even regard it as a privilege. Family life is immensely complicated.
During ten years of writing my advice column every Saturday for this newspaper, I am often overwhelmed by the sorrow and pity of family problems.
There are many selfish parents who treat their children so badly that they ultimately forfeit any right to love and duty. And there are plenty of neglectful adult children who leave their widowed mothers desperately lonely, even though they don’t live far away.
There are the cantankerous old fathers who refuse all help and worry their children sick, and the greedy, idle sons who live off their aged parents, making their house a tip and treating them like servants.
Yes, I’ve read it all.
KNOWING there are often reasons for apparent neglect, I refuse to judge. Still, let me suggest an alternative view to that of Sheila hancock. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I remain convinced that we have a duty to take care of our elderly parents, even if they sometimes drive us mad.
Yes, they repeat themselves — but I do, too. Yes, they talk about their ailments — but I’ve noticed that tendency developing in me. Yes, they want attention — but I don’t know a single human being of whom that can’t be said.
If we start to think of the elderly as just versions of ourselves further down the line, it becomes less easy to think of them as a ‘burden’ or a ‘bore’.
It goes without saying that specialist care presents another issue for families.
I have a neighbour who finally put her adored father into a wonderful care home (and they do exist) because he was wheelchair-bound and suffering from dementia and she couldn’t cope with his medical needs any more.
She visited him every other day until he died — nobody could say she wasn’t a devoted daughter. You simply cannot always do it all yourself.
Sheila hancock says she has already selected a care home in case she gets ill — and I respect that decision.
Yet it also begs a bigger question. Is there an element of sadness and shame behind such seemingly brave comments about old age and care? And does it not encourage that widespread negativity and neglect that we see in this society’s attitude towards the old?
There is surely a case for suggesting that it is every child’s right — and privilege — to care for elderly parents. After all, that’s the way people organise family life all over the world.
on okinawa, Japan (nicknamed by the World health organisation ‘the island of long life’), there is a culture of younger people regarding the elderly as a ‘ treasure’ (their word), not a burden.
And, even today, Native American tribes dignify their older generation with the title ‘elders’. They see the old as the keepers of traditions, values, language and history. As role models for children, the elders are also guides to the future. how exciting for the children, parents and grandparents alike.
But that way of looking at family life is becoming increasingly remote from us in modern Britain — and I think it a dreadful pity. We seem to be raising a generation who are horribly intolerant of the old.
It was evident most clearly after the Brexit vote — with the young who had been lolling about at glastonbury furious that their ‘ future’ had been taken from them, while well-known, middleaged Remainers even suggested it would be a good thing for the reactionary oldies to die, so there could be another referendum.
It was shocking — and shone a light on a nasty undercurrent pervading through this society.
Chronically youth- obsessed and technology- driven, we seem to have lost the innate deference for age, which was once usual in families from all classes.
When I was growing up in the Fifties and early Sixties, a young man of 20 would automatically get to his feet for a mature woman and apprentices learned to knuckle down to their trades in tough schools of life led by older men. They wouldn’t have dared whinge!
Such things were expected of the young, and ‘ respect’ meant more than the street slang it seems to represent today.
I worry that the children of the baby boomers actually think of themselves as immune to ageing and death.
Youth culture is relentless — and I fear remarks like Sheila hancock’s lob the ball squarely into the selfobsessed court of the young.
But why should the generations coming after us be protected from the realities of life — including the frailty and (sometimes) indignity of the ageing body? What makes
so special? When I was younger, I used to counter my own irritation when a very elderly person was holding up the supermarket queue with the thought: ‘That will be you one day, my girl!’
At 71, I’m still moving too fast and I have to stop myself hurrying my own parents along. ‘I need to do everything slowly,’ says my 96- year- old father — and why shouldn’t he?
Being close to my parents as they’ve grown older has been so good for me. They have taught me to be more patient — and that family responsibilities are far more important than a glamorous social life or ambition. I’m learning more from them now than I ever did as an arrogant 25-year-old.
But that’s probably because I’m willing to be there for them — and love to remember all they did for me.
My father thought nothing of jumping in his car with his best friend and driving from Wiltshire to London to fix my electricity when I was in my 20s. My mother was my confidante in tough times and her courage taught me how to be brave.
My parents took wonderful care of my two young children whenever I wanted a break with the Sunday papers and scooped them up for bucket-and- spade holidays in a way I don’t with my own grandchildren.
THESE are the people who bought me all the books I wanted and encouraged homework and always believed in me. Their generosity to me and my children has been staggering. I owe everything to the mother and father who nurtured me — so why should I not return that nurturing now?
What price cooking meals and ferrying them to doctors set against that lifetime of devotion?
They don’t live with me (yet), but my second husband and I factored being near to them into our choice of house. I can get to them in 18 minutes.
Nowadays, I will not go away for more than a week (and then only to western europe) in case they need me. We put a stairlift into their home and organised cleaning assistance for them, but who knows what the future will bring?
No one says dealing with old age is easy — for anybody. of course, we can get irritable, because that’s only human. But dealing with these emotions is part of a valuable process.
I believe that witnessing firsthand the processes of ageing and infirmity helps us develop a wider and deeper understanding of life.
I see it in my thirtysomething son, whose patience with his grandfather is nothing short of miraculous. I see it in his lovely wife, who goes to visit with her five-year-old son, every week.
I know for a fact that if I call on them, my daughter and son-inlaw will rally round with strong