You always take a very carefully considered position on contentious issues, @vero, but never lose your brio or your humanity when presenting it. Thanks.
People’s reasons for moving abroad are, I think, many and various, but not always entirely self-serving. Societies all over the globe are changing, and there are growing pains.
My own ‘nuclear’ family unit is more aligned with my wife’s values developed in rural Africa where there was a very significant colonial influence.
Our children reflect their mother’s values much more than my own ‘English’ ones, and those values are more communitarian than those of the nuclear family ones of their father: values that are in an advanced state of enfeeblement as the result of consumer capitalism and the ethos of competitive acquisition it embodies.
We do not live out our lives in terms of transactional emotional exchange, or implicit indebtedness, such as are reinforced by the exchange of Christmas gifts. To our children such rituals are a childish embarrassment, long since abandoned. Only one example of the infantilisation of adults in “the west”.
I’m not going to enlarge on the conceptual gulf that distances my experience and values from those of others, whose views I respect. I only ask that judgements be not harsh on people whose frame if reference seems unusual, but is not IMO self-evidently ‘seriously wrong’.
There is too much intolerance and misunderstanding around already. And the tide of global change is ever rising, and seems unlikely to retreat for many generations to come.
Exactly and if you have been n the wrong side of it, you have a very different outlook.
If people cannot treat you with respect, and whose sole purpose in life seems to cause dissension, then do not be surprised if people steer clear.
You reap what you sow.
Now I think you are trying to say something critical of me, but I really don’t understand what you are on about this time so perhaps we should agree to disagree.
I think Jane is referring to her own childhood situation with her mother and those circumstances who could blame anyone from walking away and having nothing more to do with the mother, I wouldn’t.
And as I said, twice, I fully accept that there are cases where behaviours are so awful that they negate any sense of responsibility. Otherwise I believe that humanity tends to win out.
Obviously it is a subject that brings out strong emotions in people.
But objectively - the law is the law, and it’s there to help society run smoothly and fairly.
The reality is that if children don’t meet their legal obligations, the state does not leave the ageing parent in the gutter; AP is looked after, and the burden falls on the taxpayer. The child may not give a stuff about their AP, but that’s no reason to backslide on their responsibilities to society and shunt their own personal responsibilities off onto strangers.
My impression is that because of the legal situation in France, parents and children are able to see the relationship dispassionately. I can think of several families where there’s been no pretence on either side that the offspring were paying for their parent’s care out of anything other than duty, they didn’t even pretend to be doing it out of affection and the mother showed no gratitude, But even though they were barely civil to each other, neither side questioned what had to be done and the children showed no resentment.
I actually think this objective matter of fact approach is healthier than can happen in the UK when one sibling or even a more distant relative wheedles their way into an elderly person’s affections just to get their hands on the inheritance, while an honest straight talking relative who doesn’t always say what the old person wants to hear, gets left out in the cold. Here, the practicalities of the relationship are kept separate from the emotional side of things. You know exactly what you will inherit, and you know what the price is. If you show affection it is because you feel affection because there’s nothing to be gained from pretence. Cupboard love, my mum used to call it.
Disinheritance is possible if both sides agree, in which case neither side has any further obligation to the other…
I was only trying to point out what Jane was talking about as you said you didn’t understand and seemed to take it as a criticism which I don’t think it was nor was my comment.
My mom is the same Jane…fiercely independent (despite her medical problems) since my Dad died over 20 years ago and still one of the kindest and most genuine human beings I know…
I have recently been on the brink of giving up my life here to go back to uk and look after her…(I’m always only a heartbeat away from going home) I wouldn’t have thought twice about it but now she’s back in the land of the living she’s told me to stay where I am…she was discharged with a free 6 week care package but after a week or so she decided that there were other people in much greater need and now she just has a district nurse twice a day…,
My partner’s mum on the other hand suffering from Alzheimer’s was given no such help and despite family prepared to look after her at home…and despite being 6 months away from dieing was denied care at home which resulted in the family home having to be sold in order to pay for (totally inadequate) care in a home costing £1400 per week…!
I agree that It has nothing to do with being English or not and everything to do with the fact that I love my mom…I guess I’m fortunate to have been born to such kind understanding and ethical parents…
I know it’s not the same for everyone and have huge empathy for people whose childhoods might not have been as loving mine was…
That is terrible. My mother is cared for at home, she is in a persistent vegetative state and has been for about 9 years now, as Pick’s disease has progressed. She is fed by PEG and has oxygen when necessary. She hasn’t known who I am for 17 or 18 years, hasn’t vocalised for about 10 or 11 years and doesn’t have any reactions indicating anything but discomfort. She would most likely be dead by now if she were in an institution. She will be 77 next month and has been very noticeably ill for the last 20 years, though I suspect it started earlier.
£1400 per week !!!
My dad spent the last 7 years of life in a nursing home which was of excellent quality. He had dementia and died age 92 in 2016.
I managed his affairs and at the end his nursing home fees were £400 per week.
What sort of home charges £1400 per week/£72800 per year?
Yep…and the lady in the next door room had to pay more as the room had slightly more square footage…her son who had taken care of her at home for years and had adapted her home with every facility to look after her fell out with “the manager” over his mother’s lack of care and was told that if he caused any more trouble then he would be banned from going to visit her…
He was very well to do and became good friends with my partner and his family…my partners mum died first and he went to the funeral…and when his mother died he invited my partners family to her funeral too…,
Because like my partner’s mum he/the family were told that they couldn’t meet her needs at home and both were taken into hospital for a 6 week assessment In order to ascertain if they ‘qualified’ for any help from the nhs…
Neither qualified even though as it turned out both were within 6 months of dieing…
I’m not sure how terminally ill someone has to be before “qualifying” for help from the nhs…???
My mother is in Germany, but both there and here things are different. I can’t imagine some officious person coming along and saying her needs aren’t being met. In fact I am pretty sure nobody has ever even come to have a look.
Thanks Marie . We dumped him back in France we’re he belongs we not going to pay anything for his keep he is french they should look after him.we have moved address so no one can find us Of course this is not true it’s just aimed at a certain lady on here. We are lucky here in jersey that we all pay into a scheme that covers everyone in old age I guess we are a bit ahead of a lot of countries in that.
