Throwing our aged parents in the Trash Bin - Charly Boy

Throwing our aged parents in the Trash Bin - Charly Boy

A very interesting article by Charles Oputa boy aka Charly Boy. Read below...

Life as we all know evolves in stages. From birth, we begin the  process of aging. All things being equal, majority of us will grow old.  Thus it will be apt to say that aging is inevitable for us. So why do we  as a society pay the least attention to this process. What kinda  welfare system should we have in order to adequately take care of our  aged, (The old people in our society/parents or relatives) especially  the ones we love.

For three years before my  father passed, he was never paid his pension. My mum is going through  the same thing. I keep wondering, what if the financial or emotional  means to take care of them was lacking, they probably will be like some  of our aged pensioners who probably die standing in line waiting for  their pension that never came.

I am of the  opinion we are not doing enough as a society. It is deplorable that so  many people work and expend all their energy and when they become old,  there's no one to really take care of them. In one episode of my radio  show (Talk Junction), we talked about the need for parents to ensure  that they bond with their children because we believe that children who  have a close bond with their parents are the ones most likely to take  charge and care of them in their old age. That's the way society is  meant to evolve. we as children should be the ones to look after our  parents, yes it is the African way. They slaved and spent all their  lives looking after us so it is expected that we in return should take  care of them. My parents lived with me for several years after their  retirement. My widowed mum is 97 years old and I can't imagine her  living anywhere else but with me. Being the primary caregiver and living  again under the same roof with your parents is an enormous role  reversal.

Most of us living with  aged parents find it difficult to balance our own busy schedules with  looking after an aged parent so much so that sometimes it could be  misconstrued as not caring. For some, it could be that the global  financial mess, has left us thinking about self and our survival only.  But this piece is about those who can but don't want to. I am of the  opinion that not just government but also the corporate bodies need to  focus more on developing policies that protect this age bracket. In more  developed society it is very easy to see a nursing home systems that  caters to the old people but how effective can that be in our country.  This is a place where most pensioners can't even get access to their  pension after retirement. Corruption has eaten so deep into our various  systems that even the basic are not provided by the system. For  me  nursing homes are so impersonal and that is not our culture in  Africa. 

For people like us who don't have the  benefits of earning any pension, we are on our own. God forbid that in  our old age we become either a liability to our children or worse still,  a liability to ourselves. We have all seen the antecedents of  government towards the aged and until a miracle happens, I'm not sure  that will change  anytime soon. I have never worked for anyone so what  I've done is that through all the years, I have consistently put aside a  monthly savings in a fixed account on regular basis which I haven't  touched for over 30 years despite sometimes my financial hardship.  Planing, saving and discipline is the key to making the twilight years  of our lives easier.

A lot of people wake up to  the reality that after years of service, they don't have much to show  for it and that can lead to bitterness in old age. My summary on this  will be to advice all of us to learn to cultivate the habit of saving  for this phase of our life's. We must imbibe the attitude of saving for  the rainy day and our old age is the rainy day.      

 

One day,  we as parents won't be able to drive, to climb stairs, or maybe even  change our own clothes or feed ourselves. As painful as thinking about  this might be, we need to prepare for our comfort and safety in the last  stages of our lives. My  prayer for us parents is to have children who  will keep us company in our old age maybe take care of us with love and  anything else. Ka chineke mezieokwu.

Source: Throwing our aged parents in the Trash Bin - Charly Boy