Idealism vs. Reality

When Mum and Dad get done their work today, we're driving down to Virginia to spend Christmas with my grandmother. As with nearly everything in my life, I am of two minds about this.

On the one hand, I know that North America treats its elderly in an abominable fashion. We ignore them, patronize them, stick them in homes where we forget about them for most of the year. The general thought (unvoiced, of course) is that old people are a burden, are just holding us youthful people back from doing what we really want to do. My own grandmother has felt the brunt of this neglect -- she is bipolar, and despite the good intentions of my uncle (who lives a three-hour drive away) my mother has twice visited only to find her in a terrible state because she'd stopped taking her lithium, eating, or even getting out of the bed to go to the bathroom. My grandma needed the concerted effort of all her children to convince her to move into an 'assisted living facility' where she can get care if she needs it. Having grandma move in to live with one of us was never considered. Part of me feels like this visit to Williamsburg is only a token effort to assuage guilt, a "Hi Grandma, we love you, really!" flying visit that doesn't actually deal with the day-to-day problems of being an 80-year-old divorcee with bipolar disorder.

On the other hand, my grandma is exasperating. She doesn't hear very well, she gets what Mum calls 'wooly' sometimes, and she doesn't have the wicked sense of humour that many grandparents have. Simply put, she's boring, and that prospect makes me think the next week of visiting won't be very much fun. It will be filled with many slow conversations carried on at a high decibel level, inane comments about how old I am, and discussions of the weather and home decor.

It's hard, because I have all these ideals about how senior citizens should be treated, and yet I don't have much time for my own grandmother. Similarly, as much as I would like to stop the cycle of neglect by having my own parents live with me in their old age, part of me thinks they'd never agree to such a thing, and the other part of me doesn't want them to.

So I don't know. I'll see how this week goes, and then proceed from there as best I can. I have a feeling that as my parent's generation ages (oh, those loudly complaining boomers!) the issue of senior citizens rights will become much more important, and much better researched. So hopefully I'll find a way to treat old people with respect and prolonged attention without becoming miserable while doing it.