How are elderly people treated in your country? Is there an obligation for children to take care of their parents when they are too old to take care of themselves?

12 comments

1. In my family my mother and her siblings took care of my grandma until they weren’t able to do it. Here life expectancy is quite long and people easily reach 90+ yo. And this age they are heavily dependent and many people can’t handle. At this point my mother put her into a elder care home.

   I think this is common here. Take care of your parents until you aren’t able to do it. Anyway people visit their parent quite frequently, several times a week.

2. Ireland’s Northern European but I don’t think a lot of these stereotypes fit. I wouldn’t say it’s the same as India but Ireland is quite a family oriented culture and a lot of people would want to look after their elderly relatives.

   A lot of elderly people prefer to stay in their own home if they can live independently but we had grandparents living with us before they died and I know plenty of people who also did. It’s not a given but it’s not unusual either.

   Depends on circumstances though. Some families wouldn’t have the space though etc. and care homes are the best option if an elderly person requires specialist care. I have a relative who is approaching the end of his life and has dementia, he needs professional care for his own quality of life so he’s just been moved to a home now but he was kept at home for as long as possible with his wife and children caring for him while it was manageable.

3. You paint a picture of elderly sweetness and light that doesn’t always happen in Indian households. I know an Indian couple who took in his father (technically the eldest son’s duty I believe, but sister in law wouldn’t allow it)

   Anyway, this poor man had dementia and would often let himself out of the house in the middle of the night. Sometimes he’d get picked up by the police wandering down the middle of a busy road. EDIT: I forgot to say, eventually, they would lock him in his room at night or when they were all out. He was also quite violent sometimes.

   It was “frowned upon” to put him in a safe home but that really would have been the best option… for him. The couple, with young children and full time jobs, had nearly ten years of hell.

4. I would happily take my dad in to live with me if I had space, and if he needed help. But my mum is my brother’s problem. She treated me like shit my whole life and kicked me out when I was 16, I don’t owe her a thing. I’d say thats the culture in Denmark, if you have a close relationship with your parents you are going to be more involved when them as they grow older. Not necessarily having them move in with you as not eveyone has that space or if the parent need specialty care. But you’ll make sure they’re in the best possible living situation, go to see them, bring to your house as much as you can. If you’re not close with your parents, there is no cultural or moral obligation to do any extra.

5. In Denmark, the elderly are generally seen as independent from their children, in terms of care and such, with the focus of the family—if one can phrase it a little vulgarly like that—being towards the children, i.e. parents take care of their kids, not vice-versa.

   This means that generally, the elderly are expected and helped to maintaining the “independence” from their family that they had adults, both through public and private pensions, but also through municipal eldercare, and home nurses, so that the elderly can keep living in their own homes, and have a nurse or caretaker come help with the daily tasks for which they need help, be it to put on socks, or to clean, or to shower.

   Children still come to visit their parents, and love them dearly. That we don’t do the eldercare for our parents in their high age, is not to be interpreted as a lack of love, but rather, of a social understanding that we, together, through the welfare-state, are responsible to help maintain a dignity for the elderly, where they don’t need to rely on their children to have a retirement and pleasant autumn of their life.

6. You’re supposed to take care of them in some way, as you say they did the same when they brought you up. Of course no one would judge you if you pay for a care home, as in Hungary the wages are really low and most often than not, both of you as a couple absolutely need to work full time to even get by. If you live in the same town and you can work less and still stay afloat, sometimes it makes more sense to take care of your elderly yourself instead of paying for a home. I know one of our neighbours needed 24/7 assistance and her family managed to provide it themselves for 3 months, but they eventually found her a place at a care home and they visit her weekly. It’s really hard to provide care if you yourself struggle to stay afloat, and good care homes are expensive. I know sometimes the house of the parents is sold to pay for their care.

   Also, one thing worth mentioning is you mostly end up taking care of your parents when you already are retired, so the time factor is at least not as concerning as the economic. Most people do it until they can’t continue.

   In my case, I grew up in a multi-generational home, so it was the norm, and thankfully my great-grandma is still a fierce woman at 95, she has dementia and often doesn’t know what she’s talking about, she sometimes doesn’t recognize her daughter (yet everyone else she does recognize, she just can’t accept the old woman in the next room is her daughter because she has a little girl), but she doesn’t need much taking care of. Just make her food and make sure she eats, never leave her alone for extended periods of time in case she falls and help her down the stairs when she wants to sit out in the sun. At least one other person is at home all the time. It’s hard emotionally and making sure she’s never alone, but thankfully not so much physically.

7. I don’t know. We take a lot more care of them then we used to do, put them on a diet of different type of food laced with poison so you didn’t have to feed them because they was waste of food and was to no help for the farm and also the oldest son could take over the farm. It was like a poorhouse, but for older. Arsenikstuga.

   Also before that. Ättestupa, just let the old people jump of a cliff.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ättestupa

   From the tv serie Norsmen probably is the best re-enactment of how it happend
   https://youtu.be/DwD7f5ZWhAk

8. The problem is that many people in Western society are stuck being ”sandwich” carers, meaning they have to look after both their own children and their parents. And by people I mean women, of course. It can be doable if the woman is a stay at home parent and has the time and energy to take on both roles, but as women usually also work a full time job, thats a LOT of burden to put on one person. Im sure most people dont like the idea of locking away their elderly parent in some crummy state run facility, but usually it tends to be the only option; especially if the elderly person needs medical care, doubly so.

9. >So I come from an immigrant background, and I got into an argument in r/AskUK a couple of days ago where I said that once your parents become too old to take care of themselves, it’s up to you to make sure they live as well as possible in their last years of life. You don’t necessarily have to live with them or take care of them full-time, but you should go up to see them every now and then, talk to them and do things for them that they’re no longer able to do, and if you can afford it, ensure that they have carers or live in a nice home.

   Yeah, this is the norm in both Greece and the US (US is not Europe, but it’s my other flare, and culturally related to UK, so I thought I’d mention). I’d say in both countries, the elderly live on their own in their own house or apartment (and get lots of visits from children and grandchildren) until they can no longer take care of themselves, in which case they usually move in with one of their children, or *close* to their children. If they are at the point where they *constantly* need a nurse or they need constant care you can’t give them, then you either hire someone to come over daily or consider putting them in a home where nurses/staff are present.

   It sounds like in India, they live in multigenerational homes even when the elderly are robust and healthy? In Greece, that generally only happens when the elderly parent is lonely (spouse has died) and can no longer go up/down stairs, cook, etc. It’s roughly the same in the US.

   Also, in Greece, neighborhood life (or town life in small towns) is very vibrant -and walkable- so empty-nesters whose children live far, are rarely lonely. They’ll visit their neighbors and be treated to a cup of coffee, they’ll stop by the drycleaners across the street and chat with them, they’ll meet their friends at the town square in the evening and gossip, etc. Most older people *don’t want* to move in with their kids. Keep in mind that in Europe, older people have pensions, multigenerational wealth (not necessarily a lot, but *something*), family farm, etc, so there is less of a financial need to live with your adult children than there may be in India. But *of course* they get visits, *and* they visit their children (what’s considered ideal in Greece is everyone has their own house, but lives near, but this isn’t always possible). And living under the same roof as an elderly parent that gets to the point where they need help doing basic things (if they can no longer cook, run errands, clean/maintain a house, etc), yeah that’s normal.

10. I’d say there is certainly a family bond, and although the elderly tend to live independently as much as possible, there is still the attachment of checking up on them frequently or making sure their needs are met. For the most part, Portugal still has a strong family culture, so unless your parents were assholes, it’s quite frowned upon to just straight up abandon them, care home or not.

    That said, there is also a lot less stigma about care homes than there was in the past. People have realised that with two working adults and often young children, it’s just impossible to provide adequate care for an elderly person with demanding needs. There has also been a great effort done in regulation and inspection of care homes to reduce chances of abuse, which has also rehabilitated the public perception of care homes.

    What is a stigma and not well seen by society at large, is to leave them in the care facility and not care about them, not visiting and not engaging with the care. While certainly there must be many people who were monsters to their children and probably deserve to die alone, that can’t be the case for all of them. And in such cases, it is quite cruel and callous to dump them as a burden, and not well seen at all.

11. Hm, difficult question. When my grandmother became unable to take care of herself some years ago, first my aunt and then my mom took care of her in their own homes. My grandma hated it, she really hated not being able to take care of herself, and she gave everyone a very hard time, but she was adamant about not going to a care home, not even a luxury, private one. To her, it was the ultimate sin that children could commit towards a parent. However, she was also quite overweight, and it was basically impossible for my mom to care for her. My mom became quite ill, physically and mentally. When she became unable to take care of her and grandma finally went to a care home (at that point her mental faculties were so deteriorated that it hardly mattered where she was, as long as she was cared for) our relatives wouldn’t stop guilt-tripping and judging her. She did visit her in the beginning, but couldn’t do so anymore when pandemic happened. Grandma passed away about two years ago. Sad story.

    Some old people live with their children, taken care of, loved, and have a good life till they die. Others are taken in by their children due to social pressure, but treated badly, or the children (mostly women) get ill and burned out. Some go to elderly homes, some are visited by their children regularly, some not. It’s all over the place. But the social norm is definitely to take care of your parents when they are old, regardless of the fact that it may not be the best option for you or them. There is also a big gender inequality (my uncle for example firmly refused to take my grandma in, because it is the duty of the daughter, not him). But he is also a bit of an asshole, so maybe I am biased. As for the elderly homes, it is hard to find one that you can trust, and there have been quite a few horror stories, so I don’t blame people who don’t want to go there.

    Sorry, this is a long comment. And I am speaking for Turkey, by the way.

12. > once your parents become too old to take care of themselves, it’s up to you to make sure they live as well as possible in their last years of life. You don’t necessarily have to live with them or take care of them full-time, but you should go up to see them every now and then, talk to them and do things for them that they’re no longer able to do, and if you can afford it, ensure that they have carers or live in a nice home

    I’d say that most Spanish people will agree with that. Most Spaniards live near their parents and it would be considered unethical or wrong to “abandon” them: making regular visits to grandparents is very common (for example, my grandparents used to come to have dinner every Sunday) and even expected.

    And when parents are no longer able to take care of themselves, it’s taken for granted that their children will take care of them, or at least, make sure that they are in good hands. In most cases, not talking to one’s parents for years would be considered morally wrong or even pitiful.

    This is so ingrained that even in the Civil Code there is a provision saying that “the spouses, the ascendants and descendants are obligated to give “alimentos” reciprocally” (by “alimentos” the CC means everything needed to live). There was even a criminal case in which the Supreme Court condemned to prison two siblings for abandoning their mother, who was unable to eat or moving by herself:

    > The children have this obligation that is not only natural, but legal when the parents cannot take care of themselves. It is an obligation of natural law in essence, despite its subsequent expression in civil regulations insofar as it regulates food between relatives.

    > It can be affirmed, then, that children have a higher than moral obligation to care for their parents when they have reached an age where they cannot fend for themselves, and they appear as guarantors of that indispensable care that children must pay to their parents, in tune with the reciprocity of the attention that they had with them, providing due care and attention when they needed it because they could not take care of themselves, in the same way. In the event that this obligation is not properly fulfilled, in one direction or another, it entails responsibilities that, has a high degree of blame, not only social, which it does, but also, and above all, criminal.

    Of course, this was an especially ominous case (the mother died of starvation) but the reasoning of the Court makes it clear that there exists a social, natural and legal obligation of taking care of one’s parents.