“Give Your Loved Ones A Break”

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 2

“Give Your Loved Ones A Break”

An elderly person who lives with a married son, or daughter and their family, should give them a break for a while and voluntarily enter an eventide home, says “Franzie,” a correspondent of “The Press.”

It was most important that these families should at least have their holidays together without the elderly relative, the correspondent added. “We all know that today it is a very real sacrifice for a family to take an elderly relative into the home—not from the monetary point of view hut because modern houses are not the rambling old places where grandma or granddad could have their own quarters and be waited on by a hired girl, who used to be so easily available at quite a reasonable wage .

Sacrifice of Privacy “The sacrifice, therefore, is in privacy; the privacy to be able to have a good old family flare-up—a clearing of the air —and a tearfully, relieved ‘make-up.’ “No. Aunty, granddad or grandma must not be upset. So the flare-up is postponed and small differences assume unnatural proportions. Tensions build up and a very real rift can occur over some quite trivial matter. “The situation is exaggerated where there are children, particularly teen-age children, prickly types who need kidgloved handling at this stage. “What is more, all these problems seem to be landed in the poor wife's lap, when she is probably going through menopause, which is quite enough to bear without added adjustments to be made on account of an elderly mother. In Desperation “A friend came to me recently in desperation. For about 12 months she had had ‘mother’ living with the family of four, inclding a boy of 10 and a girl of 13. Dad's holidays were due and the family wanted to take a caravan trip *to get away from it all.’ “But the elderly mother was most hurt and indignant when the daughter tactfully suggested that she should enter a nearby home for old folk for a month or so. It was a well-run and homely establishment with a kindly, underunderstanding matron and staff,” the correspondent said. Old folk were much happier in this type of establishment, where other residents were contemporaries with similar tastes and ideas. The sons and daughters, who had been resentful of the pressures of sharing their own

homes with them, could visit them regularly, take them out for treats and were more ready to lavish affection on them.

In an appeal to elderly people living with sons or daughters, the correspondent says: “Do give your loved ones a break. Make arrangements quietly to enter a suitable home, permanently or temporarily, and let your daughter and son-in-law resume normal family life for a period. Believe me, the resulting gratitude and loving kindness showered upon you will be ample reward.”