A chocolate one.
Just to prove I am carnivorous, and thus, not a parasite.
While posting up that lovely video, Elena, sweet Elena –
YOU THINK YOU WERE FREAKED OUT BY THAT GIRL?!? WAIT ‘TIL I COME LOOK FOR YOU! –
*Ahem* Yes, where was I?
Elena mentioned that she is doing her medicine rotation now. (“Slaving away”, were her exact words, I believe.) I am doing my elderly care rotation, which is part of our medicine rotation, so I am currently attached to the geriatrics ward.
“You notice they don’t call it the Geriatrics ward? It’s called Medicine for Older People.”
- Jon Huber.
To which I say, get a clue, you’re on G level.
Today, our geriatrics – oops, I mean, elderly care – teaching was on the attitudes towards aging. On the subject of long-term care, the lecturer mentioned that his wife is an Italian, and he observed that before, people in North Italy used to live in multi-generational households, ie. the children would look after their parents, in much the same way we do in “East Asia”.
Or rather, the way we ought to do, judging from the guilt-inducing advertisements that show on the telly come every major festival.
Petronas can be such a killjoy 
Nowadays, the parents live separately from their children, as they do in England. But, while in England, the elderly live pretty much on their own, in North Italy, children pay for people, usually from Eastern Europe, to come and be servants live-in carers for their parents. In fact, it has become a matter of pride for this old people, sitting in their backyards to compare carers: “Oh, mine is Romanian.” “Mine is Bulgarian.” “Mine speaks Italian.” So on & so forth.
See, if it’s not the children, parents’ll compare the help. There’s just no stopping them.
Then, this girl pipes up, “Well, I would be concerned about immigrants looking after my parents. How do I know that they don’t have an agenda, that they’re not coming over here, and not looking after my parents properly, but just want to come here for their own reasons? I would be really worried about that.”
Well, for one thing, WE IMMIGRANTS don’t come to the UK JUST TO LOOK AFTER YOUR PARENTS for the sole reason of the GOODNESS OF OUR HEARTS, K?
We come here to earn money to look after OUR PARENTS, to look after OUR families, to look after OURSELVES. Call it our own “personal agenda”, if you like, but FACE IT, that’s the main reason people do stuff, see – FOR THEIR OWN REASONS.
Tell me, who in their right mind will leave their HOME, to come to a foreign country to look after RANDOM OLD PEOPLE, just because they really, REALLY care, and they really, REALLY want to look after random old people?
Mother Teresa, put your hand down.
Immediately after the lecturer finished his response to the girl, I made it a point to ask, (in my distinctly foreign Malaysian accent):
“So, why don’t children here want to look after their parents?”
I could almost hear the hush that descended on the lecture theatre, and behind me, my Afro-Carribbean sister hissed, “Sheena!”
It’s true, innit? If you’re so bloody worried, WHY DON’T YOU LOOK AFTER YOUR PARENTS YOURSELF THEN?
Lecturer looked taken aback, then replied, “That is a fair question.”
He ventured, “In the past, before the war, people used to stay with their children. After the war, the older people wanted to be as independent as possible. Those who stayed with their children did so more out of economic constraints, and those who did not have such contraints, those who could afford to move out, especially the middle-class, did. In fact, we can see there was a drive towards independence: the older people were pushing children out of their homes earlier and earlier.”
And another girl interrupted, “So, it’s not so much that children don’t want to look after their parents. It’s more that parents don’t want to be looked after by their children.”
RIGHT. I’ll give you that there is a claim to independence on the part of the elderly. But, how do you explain children putting their parents into nursing homes then? Yeah, putting them into a nursing home with a whole bunch of other people they don’t know, and can’t avoid, is all about their wish to be “independent”.
Actually, to be honest, I don’t care. You cannot cope, means you cannot cope. You malas jaga your parents? Fine. Just don’t be so hypocritical about it and say, “Oh, it’s because my parents won’t let me look after them.”
RIGHT. And that’s why they’re happy letting complete strangers, ie. those IMMIGRANTS you were so worried about, look after them instead.
RIGHT.
