Quote:
Originally Posted by Blossom
She's 76 and totally disabled, handicapped...
|
Fortunately my father isn't handicapped or mentally disabled (not yet at least), but he's just starting to become old. Putting off things that need doing because it's too warm, too cold, because it -could- rain in the next half hour, and so forth; always an excuse to not do something. He has no hobbies anymore. The ones he had, breeding and raising/training dogs and breeding birds are impossible to keep up at 77. Way too much work, so as far as I know, he just sits in his chair watching TV most of the day.
He's had 20 years to arrange something, and has been told, asked, and offered repeatedly, but it's just impossible.
Exactly the same with his two neighbors, by the way; one a year or two younger than he is, the other 7 years older. At some point, shit's going to go wrong somewhere, even if it's just a stove left on that burns down one of the houses. Then the entire block will go.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
My mother wound up in an assisted living facility, legally blind from macular degeneration, on oxygen due to Emphysema, and using a walker on the odd moments her social worker visited and could take her out. Her heart was still ticking away, but the rest of her was failing, and she complained the last time I saw her that she was too stupid to simply die and leave a life that had grown unbearable.
|
I hope I'm dead before stuff like that happens to me. I hope my parents are dead before it happens to them.
While people are getting older and older, I firmly believe many people nowadays are becoming older than what is reasonable for a human being. Yes, some people can become 100 without a hitch, but most can't. Life expectancy is increasing year after year, but are those extra years worth it? For some, they are; for many, they aren't.
Then, thinking that I'd have to work until I'm 71 if nothing changes in the current rules in the Netherlands.... taking into account that most companies already consider you to be 'old' when you're 45. People aged 50-55 can often work normally. After that, I think most people will start to slow down, and while some can easily go up to 70 or beyond in non-physical jobs, I firmly believe raising the pension-off age over 70 is pushing it.