Caring for My Children & Parents…Who’s Going to Take Care of Me in the End?

The experiences of being a middle-generation, what’s, trending N-O-W, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

Last year, as I’d wheeled my father, who’d had a broken femur and had a surgery back to the doctor’s office, my mother who is diagnosed with Parkinson’s wanted to come too, and, I’d begged and pleaded with her to stay home with the nurse’s aide; my father who’s normally very forceful and strong, with that stubbornness looked very unwilling, and several times, he’d attempted to use a walker, but he didn’t have any strengths in his legs, and, the wound still hurt, and he’d, given up on the attempts.

“Growing older is such misery, the two of us already tried, and we’re, torturing you too.” I’d had to hear them sigh repeatedly, and that day, while I was, waiting in the hallways in the hospital, a parent was eager to greet me, he too, wheeled along his elderly father to see the doctors. I’d recalled, that he has three daughters, and, in his training them to become studious, he’d spent a lot of money on cramming sessions, as well as hiring those private tutors, and his daughters didn’t disappoint either, went to all of their first-choice schools, it’d made all the other parents envious.

I’d asked about how his children are, he’d said proudly, that they are living in three different countries, “Do they come back to visit you often?”, he’d shaken his head, smiled and bitter smile, and his face looked a bit, depressed, “then, you can visit them abroad and travel to places!”, hearing me, his face looked even, bitterer, he’d glance over at his father in a wheel chair, “I’d needed to take care of my elderly parents, I can’t get away, even if I could, I can’t, afford it!”, he’d looked around, sighed, “There’s almost all elderly here, almost all in wheelchairs, and, there were, so many elderly who were taken to treatment by the hired nurses’ aides, and if we are lucky, we might get that in the future, but, if the economy keeps on deteriorating, we may not even be able to afford the nurses’ aides after!”

Afterwards, I’d mentioned it, told my father to stop feeling sorry for himself, “Someone who didn’t have a daughter to look after her/him, seeing that I’m taking care of you, they are, envious of you!”, my father sighed, “then, the children needed to have the economic capabilities, otherwise, they may need the money from the parents, and, the younger generations are having it hard, making enough, your generation needed to prepare for your elderly care yourselves!”

“Preparing for old age, you’d needed to be economically well, there are so many who are, barely surviving, how can they set money aside?”, I’d known a woman who’d married to Taiwan, she’d worked hard as a cleaning lady, to provide for her families, a while ago her husband fell ill, and because they couldn’t afford the two-patient wards, they can only stay in the hallways of the hospital, to wait for the four-bed wards that are paid for by the national health insurance agency; and, as the cold front hit, the husband and wife were, trembling hard; and finally, her husband got well, and, she’d wanted to work more, to make a little extra money before the New Year’s, and, she’d, fallen down, and, had a shattered bone fracture.

The brothers of a friend died young, and, as an only daughter, she’d, needed to carry the responsibilities of looking after her parents, and, it’d, strained her, her two sons both had children, not only were they unable to look after them, they’d needed her to babysit too.

“Think on it, our generation is tried hard, when we were younger, we’d looked after our children, and, as we hit middle age, we’d started looking after our aging parents, and I’m seventy now, and needed to look after my parents until they passed, and, my life is, nearing end, how will I have it easy in my elderly years?”

And her son replied, that they were the ones being tried hard, working hard, for not enough pay, and life was hard enough, living in the big cities, and raising their young is, even harder, other than not having any qualities of life, the hardest was, there’s, no future to look forward to.

“Mrs., us taking care of our elders was like looking into the sunset, worrying the coming of the long nights, who will look after us; our children looking after their own young, like seeing those small suns, expecting the suns to shine brightly, and yet, there’s nothing, but endless, grayed out skies, what can we do?”, a lot of my friends shared these, same worries.

Thinking of the worries of my friends’ sons, and everybody’s being tried of living day to day, and yet, as we turn the pages of a newspaper, the major issues revolved around elections, the duels of the parties, who can give these leaders high up a reality check, to get them to, care more about how we are, living?

And so, this, is the troubles of the people of the world, because as we grow older, our parents are even older than we are, and, as we all age, there would be, the illnesses, that we can’t, escape from, and we’d needed, to get taken care of, to be looked after, but, the younger generations are having it hard enough, making their own ends meet, how will they have the mind to spare, to look after their elders? And even if they can, they still won’t be able to, because they got their own young to raise!