Be kind to the aged: your day will come too
How very sad.
Psychologically, our society is geared to the young; movies, sports and fashions all stress the importance of youth and we give the elderly less of a role than ever before.
The day when some older person’s attitudes or actions conflict with your own, stop and ask: what do older people want to get out of life?
One old friend summed up the basic needs of the aged simply and succinctly: “Somewhere to live, something to do and someone to care.”
The next question — how can you help your relatives fulfil these basic desires? You can do nothing unless you put yourself in the older person’s place. One major misconception is that the old like to be in a safe and cosy nest. This probably accounts for more unhappy relationships than anything else.
No older person likes to have his/her life planned, whether family members tuck them away in an old folks home or put them in a gilded cage. If you force them, the result is likely to be a bitter, dejected individual.
If the old person is one of substance there will be many relatives and friends buzzing around, like bees to a honey pot, to care for his or her every need. If there is a will, there is always a relative.
Where an elderly person lives is not the major consideration. Letting him or her know they are valued is all that counts.
If you bring pressure to bear through third parties, when they are facing a devastating break in long-established routine, they will feel you are persecuting them. What they can’t bear is to feel baffled and helpless because too often people act as if crisis in family life ought not be discussed with them.
Learning to live in amity with older people is a challenge that is worth more than passing study. For even if it doesn’t face you right now, remember you are going to be “an older person” yourself someday.
Cllr Noel Collins
‘St Jude’s’
Midleton
Co Cork
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