The troubles of the aging elderly parents in this day and age, the real cases of elderly parents, getting kicked around, “shipped”, from one child’s home to the next, in rotation, because we’re ALL, responsible for caring for our, elderly, aging parents, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
The Children’s Homes Don’t Feel Like Their Own, They’d Felt Like Guests
Splitting the Costs of Caretaking, Turning Siblings into Enemies
Having Many Offspring Doesn’t Mean Being Blessed These Days, as the Parents Grew Older & Needed Looking After, the Children Would Take Turns, Having the Parents Staying There, but in Recent Years, there’s, the Trends of “Tramping Parents” Surfacing. Some of the Elders Were Kicked Around Like Balls by Their Young, Not Only Do They Feel Awful, it’d, Caused the Disagreements Between Their Children Too, and this Became, a Vicious Cycle.
There was an elderly couple in Hsinchu who originally lived in with their eldest son, later on, the elderly woman had a stroke, the eldest daughter-in-law shouldered the caretaking requirements for long and became, displeased, and demanded a family meeting, discussing the splitting of the caretaking, and, they’d agreed, that the three sons shall, take turns, having the parents.
The three sons live in Hsinchu, Banciao, and Taipei, and, this elderly couple started, taking the transportations every month, to rotate in the three sons’ homes to stay. Other than needing to adapt to the busyness of the streets of Hsinbei City and Taipei, the elderly couple only knew the Hakka dialects, and, they’d had a hard time, communicating with others outside the home, and slowly, they’d, stopped, going out. Later on, the elderly woman passed, and the elderly man started becoming demented too, not only doesn’t he remember that his wife is already gone, he’d not understood why he was, being sent to and transferred to these, unfamiliar, places.
The Elderly Man Stated: “This is Like Being in Prison, Only that I Keep, Switching from Prison to Prison”
“It’s like I’m serving time, and kept transferring from one prison to the next”, during the time when the elderly became, demented, he’d once told the homecare help this. And even as the children knew that this transferring their father to and from worsens his conditions, none of them wanted to break the balances, and in the end, the elderly was sent into a nursing home, where he’d stayed, until he’d, died.
Grandma Chang in Tainan has two sons and a daughter, both the sons are in business, the eldest daughter married to Chiayi. Grandma was, immobilized, and started living with her eldest son, but he’s busy in business, and as his families looked after the elderly woman, they’d felt, “unfair” and complained; the eldest daughter saw, and lifted her mother to Chiayi to look after, but the mother had an accidental fall, had a fracture, and the eldest son got angered at how careless his eldest sister was, and took his mom back to Tainan to live with him.
The eldest son and his younger brother negotiated, that their mother will be rotating between the two houses, and they will be, splitting up the costs of taking care of her evenly, but, this was the start of the brothers, getting on one another’s bad side; whenever one brother came a day late to pick up their mother, the other brother started, arguing, and, they couldn’t agree on how the costs should be split up, evenly, and, in just a few months, the brothers became, strangers. In the end, the brothers took out a small apartment for their mother and a foreign nurse’s aide to live in, and demanded their eldest sister to pay for the costs too; and, three years later, until Grandma Chang passed, thus, ended this period of, upset for the family.
“No Son-in-Law is Supposed to Take Care of the Mother-in-Law”, the Words, Hurt Grandma
The eighty-year-old Grandma Chang’s husband died two years ago, and because of her diabetes, she’d become, immobilized and needed someone around the clock to help take care of her, and so, she had to take turns, between her two sons and her daughter’s, homes. One day, the elderly woman had an argument on what the foods tasted like with her son-in-law, and the son-in-law blurted out, “no son-in-law should be responsible for caring for a mother-in-law!”, and this hurt the elderly woman badly, she’d demanded her daughter take her back home immediately, and, the daughter and the son-in-law had a huge fight because of it, and had been giving each other the silent treatment since.
“As the elders needed to be looked after, it may be the start of their homelessness.” The office manager of the Hsinbei Hongdao Elderly Welfare Association, Chen stated, as a lot of elders started rotating their stays with their young, it usually happens after they started needing around-the-clock care, “we’re all your offspring, so why are we the only ones who look after you?” usually, became the start of this, vicious cycle of, having the elderly parents, rotate their residences.
The local communities observed, if the elders were moved to different cities and counties, normally, as they’re, being transferred to the next place of residence, they will be taken out. Chen said, as the elders are rotating, not only would the children need to make that extra room for their parents, the elders also had to, adapt to the differences of furniture placements, the children’s lifestyles, and everything became, foreign to them, and they’d started feeling, “This is not my home”, that they’re, not there to stay for long.
Going from the Countryside into the Cities to Live, Felt Stupid, for Not Knowing How to Open the Doors
“I’m so stupid, can’t even open the door”, Chen found, that this adjustment difficulty showed up more in the elders who were moved from the countryside to the cities, an elderly man couldn’t get used to how fast-paced living is in the city, and a lot of the buildings had the door keys and he’d not known how to use the key cards to scan, not knowing how to press the elevator buttons, or open the doors, which made him felt left behind by time, and soon enough, he’d not liked, going out, and stayed at home for long periods of time, which made him deteriorate even faster.
Another case was that the children would do all the grocery shopping for their parents, so the parents wouldn’t have to trouble themselves to go to the marketplaces to select the groceries, and this had, reduced the chance of the elderly’s going out, plus, there’s no neighbor to chit chat, they’d become, kept at home, and, the children go to work, the grandchildren to school during the daytime, nobody is at home with them, “They’d, switched from place to place, and continued, in their own, lonely elderly years.”
And, these, are cases that happened here, and, there’s, NOTHING we can do about it, I mean, how are we, supposed to, WATCH our own elders, when we have work, school, and our own lives, and, as our elders started deteriorating away, we’re at, wits end on what to do, and, we think that our arrangements of, rotating them to and from our houses is what’s fair, but we failed to consider the wellbeing of, our aging, elderly parents, and this is still a problem that will, continue, because the world is aging faster now, and, there’s, just NOT enough of us, younger generations around, to keep working, keeping looking after, our own, elderly parents, and this IS a vicious cycle we will keep on, getting, STUCK in, with NO way O-U-T!
Life, the Obstacle Course 