The last thing in the world is getting older but you might want to change your mind after you read this article "Growing up about growing old" on the BBC News (Hughes, 2011).
According to Dr.Hughes, when you're getting older it can make you feel suffer but does bring the merriness to you. The increasing of the elderly seems to be a problem of physical and economy, but in fact it cause less trouble compare with the youth. Also they can be as a volunteer for the hospital or any other social services. The big society are mainly are supported by elderly people. Besides volunteer to work for the social, they're value more for their children. Dr.Hughes asks if 85 can live their life happily why we can't optimize like them.
I think it's possible that everybody prospects to grow up and become the healthy elderly in the future. Trying not to be problem for your offspring is a big worry for them. From this point, they should take care of themselves to be healthy before getting old. I wonder that we are really give them the respecting to be an elderly in accurately. Even in social, do they give any chances for the elderly people to work and let them function on what they do. Sometimes their own children don't think that their parents can do things after their retirement. Try to be advocacy for the elderly; it will help them to return something back to you. As Thai culture we're closed and are raised up in the big family. The elderly can be the one who teach lots of things to the kids that they can't find from the school. Somehow, someone doesn't' care how the elderly feel. The younger will leave from their hometown to work to get the better life and never come back. That's really sad for me. In Western culture, it doesn't matter for you to come back and visit the family once or twice a year. It made me think that the elderly who live in another country, they can take care of themselves and have the better quality of life compare with the one who live in Thailand. They can go out and do their own things. One of reason that support them to have such a lovely life because they still keep working and active to keep seeing the new people. For example the elderly loves to go to the church every Sunday to communicate with the others.
When your mind is full of happiness, it's not too difficult to have longevity and die peacefully.
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Hughes,J. (2011, April 21). Growing up about growing old. BBC News. Retrieved May 4, 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13093992.
I think you chose a good topic for discuss and there are different conception about the old people and this depend of the culture. Normally when the people are young think in get many, had children, build house, work… and sometimes forgot take care yourself. When getting older enjoy their older life and is possible became volunteers in different places. However, there are cultures when the older person need care theirs grandchildren. There are another’s cultures when the person getting older doesn’t had more credibility together the society also his families. However, I think the older people need a freedom and happily life for chose what their want to do.
ReplyDeleteArt's response and Neiva's comment made me think of my parents. My father died two years ago at age 80, and was working the day before as he had for more than 60 years. He wasn't doing heavy farm work any more (although he was still doing a bit on the farm), just looking after his businesses and representing his area in the local government, but he was active and busy every day. I think he's a great example for Art's idea that it's good "to have longevity and die peacefully" (¶ 4).
ReplyDeleteMy mother is 80 next month, and does everything herself - she cooks, gardens, drives around, and she meets her old buddies to play lawn bowls, eat and gamble (her gambling is a bit of worry, but she has fun and it's her money when she loses.)
And then I thought of how differently she treats her grandchildren compared to her children. When I was at home for Songkran, my sister told her 2 year old daughter not to wipe the chocolate she eating on the cream curtains at my mother's home. Mum immediately told her to be quiet, that it didn't matter if there was a bit of brown smeared on the cream. She was definitely not so tolerant of myself and my brothers and sisters when we were toddlers eating chocolate.
I understand how you feel, this happened sometime in my family too. I think when our parents were in the middle age, they had to take care of their own kids; dad also worked hard and mom tried to do her best to support family. Stress and lack of rest maybe the important reasons of inpatient. However when they pass that hard time of their life, they can feel more relax and more calm.
ReplyDeleteTheir offspring all grow up, some might move out and build up their own family. Once when their kids come back home with the little cute heir, I’m certain that grand mom and grandpa can’t get angry with their little angles. They overlook the small mistake and give more compliments. The elderly needs to be loved by their little cousins again.Because life is so short,as a good kid, we should support them to do more activities to make their life active and be happy.
This report made me think, about how society handles elder people in each culture. For instance I like the respect that Asian societies have with their elder people. They value the elder people’s knowledge; they feel that responsibility to take care them until the end. In the western culture I admire that the elder people had a longer useful life. Their average of life is high however: I am not sure they are an example for healthy life. Yet those cultures made me sad about elders in South American society, for example the people on the sixty’s years felt old and they cannot do anything by themselves. Furthermore whether they want to continue to work , it is impossible for them to find a dignified work according with their experience, our society thinks they are too old to do any significant employee. Even so I agree with the Dr Huges report they cause less trouble for the economy than young people, because this last group is affected for the world economic crisis, and they lack experience and they need to be support by their relatives, nevertheless elder people mostly live by them self. Almost all of us will pass this phase and we need to deal with the elders the way we want to be dealt with.
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