These days some are starting to invest in senior living centers. Simply because people live longer, kids become less loyal!
In one of the meetings of a senior housing project, one of the managers of these centers who has been hired as a consultant for this project looks at me and says, "Try to come up with as much as entertainment spaces as possible, such as bars, bowling, movie theaters, coffee shops" and continues, "If you don't, their kids and family won't come and visit them."
I look down to hide my wondering eyes and scribble something on my notepad.
He emphasizes, "No, I mean it! They won't!".
I tell myself, in my culture you don't put your parents in a warehouse just because they are old!
2 comments:
I went to one of those Adult Living Communities near where you live to visit my friend who moved there when she turned 60. It was awesome!
I used to wonder why children of aging Americans don't take care of their parents until I asked my friend about it. She said that when she was 17, she graduated high school and left her parents' home for college, getting herself a job to support herself, and later moving into her own apartment. She says I have been gone for 30 years, almost twice as long as I lived with them. The idea of living with my parents is too overbearing for me now.
I think in our culture, parents don't let go of their children until they are married, and this is why children feel very close and attached to their parents, feeling naturally motivated to hang out and live with their parents into their old age.
I would want to live independently when I grow old, Helaleh Jan. I want my kids to come visit me, but I don't expect them to take care of me, as I want them to have a happy and unencumbered life with their families, not worrying about me. Of course, if they forget me and never come to visit me or if they need me to live in a posh Las Vegas Style cabaret and resort, I would be disappointed in them!
Be good azizam.
This is a mystery as old as the long history of human being!Nobody has ever found out why we are born, give birth, and finally die in an interminable circuitous route!
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