The Practicing Progressive

I have heard there are some people in America who actually take Sarah Palin seriously so I suppose I should report that all indications are that President Obama has not established a “Death Panel” expressly to decide if Ms. Palin’s granny is to live or die. However, grandma may not be entirely out of the woods.

Not too long ago, I found myself surrounded by fellow senior citizens adamantly declaring that they would never want to move in with their children no matter how dire their financial circumstances had become. Considering the state of most of our 401ks, I understood why many around me nodded their heads in worrisome agreement. Nevertheless, I found such passionate opposition to expanding family parameters more than a little curious. After all, we are only a generation or two removed from when grandma or grandpa was expected to be a part of the household. Indeed, my 90 year old mother was raised by her own grandmother who had been brought to America by Mom’s father, my grandpa, after his mother was widowed. From the time I was very young I heard stories of how “Grossmuter” cooked, cleaned and cuddled but never spoke a word of English in my mother’s childhood home.

Certainly such a scenario was not unique among my mother’s generation. A cursory look through any dusty family album will show how integrated grandparents were in the lives of their children and grandchildren. Shipping granny and grandpa off to institutional care is, in the scheme of things, a very recent development.

And what about this fervent desire among my peers to never depend upon their children for anything more than Thanksgiving dinner or a couple of hours sitting round the Christmas tree?

As a grandparent myself, I suppose my concern sounds a little self-serving and probably sends a collective shiver down the spines of my three kids but it does seem more than a little odd that such a dramatic change in family dynamics has taken place in such an extraordinarily short time.

Perhaps it is the inculcating of that uniquely American myth of rugged individualism that has finally managed to work its way into our senile psyches, convincing us we can and must go it alone right down to the end. Recent advertisements on TV and magazines reinforce this mindset. “Will you run out of money before you run out of breath?” goes the underlying message and we oldies are left convinced that nothing could be worse.

It may be that a similar sense of shame is being used to fuel the fanatical opposition to any national health care plan. The very thought of relying on the generosity of others or, perhaps even worse, sharing such largesse with others, fuels this absurd animosity toward a reasonable health care policy that is merely in keeping with every other developed nation in the world.

As long as I am psychoanalyzing, could the absurd amounts of money spent on the last few weeks of an elderly man or woman’s life be the direct result of the guilt felt by descendents who have neglected the one who is dying when he or she was much more fully alive?

In Asia, things are done a little differently. In fact, caring for one’s parents is still the paramount feature of Chinese culture. Rooted in Confucianism’s veneration of the elderly, nothing is more important to a son or daughter than the well-being of their parents. The expectation that a parent would be ashamed to live with his or her offspring is beyond that culture’s comprehension. In China, at least, we oldies are seen as a blessing rather than a burden. (All of which makes me extremely grateful I have a Chinese-American son-in-law.)

“It takes a village to raise a child” is how that famous African saying goes but one can’t help but worry how that child will fare if Gramps is spending his days on an Arizona golf course and Nana is nowhere to be found.