Roundtable
Senior Care
The Roundtable Open Forum XXI: March 24 - 30
EDITOR
The Rules of the forum are posted here on the right, and need to be followed strictly by all participants.
The following is this week's (March 24 - 30) topic for discussion, which should focus on the questions posed therein:
SENIOR CARE
1 Sikhs are now well settled as citizens in communities around the globe - in most countries, several generations of local born and/or bred Sikhs are flourishing.
2 Which means that, as time marches on, our parents - and many of us - are blossoming into ‘seniorhood' and are suddenly acquiring new needs.
3 This is invariably and inevitably giving rise to new challenges for the community.
4 Back 'home' in the old country, this was never an issue. The old and the infirm merely grew within the existing family, and the latter automatically adjusted itself around their growing needs. Three, sometimes even four, generations often lived together and nurtured each other.
5 Life in the diaspora offers different challenges. Life is busier, and at a far greater pace. All members of the family work. There are no servants in the household. Most dwellings are geared to single-family living. Seniors increasingly want to delay or skip retirement and continue with their busy lives. People have become accustomed to truly independent lives and, in time, become very protective of their independence ... and privacy. A full range of viable and attractive options is available: such as Home Care, Retirement Communities, Assisting Living Facilities, Nursing Homes, etc., depending on the needs of a senior.
6 On the other hand, there is a price to be paid for the benefits of independence, privacy and better care. Children lose out on the love, nurture, wisdom, guidance and mentorship of grandparents. Generation gaps become wider and deeply entrenched.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
- Are your parents here in the country where you live? Or your children, if you are the senior? Do they live with you? What is the arrangement?
- Have you considered other alternatives for your parents or yourselves? What are the pros and cons, from your perspective?
- Does guilt or disappointment play a factor? How? How do you deal with it?
- What are the choices available to you in your community? Are they sufficient or good choices?
- What is the ideal arrangement YOU would like for yourself?
- Have you spoken to your parents or children about it? What do they think?
- What does your spouse feel about it?
Conversation about this article
1: I.J. Singh (New York, U.S.A.), March 24, 2010, 5:31 PM.
It is true that in India parents, often stayed with one child or another and that's how the "golden years" were spent. Their influence on grand children in the transmission of a heritage was umparalleled - it can't be equated with, and far supercedes, the best of impersonal child care. But from the point of view of the older generation staying to do what they can with grandkids is like being in a gilded cage. Our (Sikh) society has not developed any meaningful projects and systems to give the old a life of their own. I wish our gurdwaras took on such projects. Look at the communities in Florida to understand how professional the efforts can be and how rewarding the results. Letting the old live - waiting to die - is not a solution nor is it humane.
2: Gurjendra Singh (Maryland, U.S.A.), March 24, 2010, 10:18 PM.
I.J. Singh is right: no gurudwara management thinks about their own or the old age of others. I have seen senior Sikhs who are totally dependent on their kids for a visit to the gurdwara. They cannot go anywhere and the children are also busy are in their jobs or with their kids. About 20 years ago, when I talked to a few gurdwara management people, they just said that every thing would be alright when 'the time comes'. I do not know, if they were talking about the time of death or some thing else. It is nature's law that one has to get old - that is without question. In this respect, churches are ahead of the game. They have built hospitals and senior citizen homes in every city and town so that they can remember God and get all the support they need at the same time. We need to learn from others. We are concentrating too much on building just gurdwaras. Two years ago, I went for a business trip to Western USA, a town where there were only 30-40 Sikh families and they had a nice new Gurudwara. This year I was surprised to see a new gurdwara within 3 miles, in the same city. Please note that our needs have changed: we need to open a few housing facilities along with these gurdwaras, with care facilities for the seniors.
3: Nirmal Singh Nilvi (Texas. U.S.A.), March 28, 2010, 10:24 AM.
Senior Care is an issue Sikhs in diaspora enjoy discussing on two occasions: when attending the funeral of some one or on a weekend get-together with a favorite drink in hand. The purpose of the discussion is also well defined: to demonstrate knowledge of the issue and our acute awareness of its need. Monday morning it is business as usual. I am sharing this with real experience. In the mid 80's, I acquired 110 acres of prime land in the Dallas suburbs with two objectives: to satisfy my emotional need emanating from my farming lineage in Punjab. The other was to potentially develop it as a retirement community for Sikhs in particular and Punjabis in general. In reality, my good thought turned out to be either too ahead of its time (market) or the market never existed other than during weekend musings. I sold the property and purchased a bigger parcel as an investment and to take care of my emotional need. However the experience has been worthwhile. I enjoy the weekend conversation more because it is idle, liberating and more mentally aligned with others. The chances of Sikhs joining senior citizen communities are low at best, among the current retirees.
4: Gurmeet Kaur (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.), March 28, 2010, 6:49 PM.
Not only for our seniors but our disabled, singles and others in need, it is imperative that we plan our housing communities close to the gurdwaras. We should also consider investing in duplexes/ multi-family homes so parents can live in an independent unit but are never too far away after their retirement, when old age/ dependency sets in. These are the only practical steps I see in the near term.
5: Basant Kaur (Adelaide, Australia ), March 29, 2010, 2:50 PM.
Life outside the milieu we have in Punjab, where elaborate support systems exist within the extended family, is loaded with its fair share of challenges ... because the same social infrastructure does not exist elsewhere in the diaspora. Therefore, it is not always a very good idea for seniors to live with their married children. Sadly, the highest source of problems leading up to the divorce of younger couples (Indian, Punjabi, Sikh, etc.) is the conflict between cohabiting in-laws. That doesn't mean there aren't exemplary success stories otherwise ... but if we are talking about families from a rural or less sophisticated background, the risk is high.
6: Karam Singh (New Brunswick, Canada), March 29, 2010, 3:05 PM.
Looking at your current poll breakdown, I am not surprised that a majority of sikhchic.com readers are clear in their choice of living alone (as couples) during retirement. It's understandable - Sikhs are hardworking, affluent and independent. I would have been shocked if the poll had indicated otherwise. But I do wish people will nevertheless look into assisted care and other senior-care facilities for future reference. With life-spans higher than ever before in history (except, of course, in myth and legend), and with medical science continuing to make major strides, many of us will invariably find ourselves - at some stage - old, frail, and incapable of tending to many of our needs. At that stage, our children - no matter how dedicated, committed and loyal - will not be in the best position to help. Those of us who are fortunate to live in societies which provide excellent and affordable alternatives, we should never rule them out ... opting for them at that stage will in no way reflect on our children or loved ones, or suggest a failure of any sort on the part of anyone!
7: Amar Singh (New Delhi, India), March 29, 2010, 6:35 PM.
There is no dearth of Sikh real estate developers anywhere. Surely they can start making provisions for a Gurdwara and Sikh community centre in their developments ... it will attract the affluent Sikh clientele and, at the same time, provide unprecedented and much needed seva!
8: Jaswant Singh (Manitoba, Canada), March 30, 2010, 4:03 PM.
Most middle-class families are covered by local laws (in Canada and, I assume, in the U.S. and Europe) which require regular-size residences to be used only as single-family dwellings. Accordingly, in recent decades, all homes affordable by the middle-class are three- or four-bedroom residences, at the most, and therefore cannot accommodate seniors within the extended family once they retire. This has had a lasting impact on the way people can live in North America. (More affluent families can afford monster homes and thus avoid this problem, if they wish to have grandparents live with them).