BLOG #37, SERIES #5
WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE
CHILDREN WHO DISPOSSESS THEIR PARENTS
September 10, 2014
Such cruelty has always been with us, but never, at least to my knowledge, has it been as wide-scale as it is today. Just in my own circle of family, friends, and acquaintances, the following examples have either recently taken place or are taking place as I write this:
A son and his wife are so eager to get the aged mother’s money that they gradually take more and more of it until they reach the point where they even begrudge her continuing to enjoy her health. They move her into assisted living, then openly talk in front of her about how much she is costing them, and tell her that she should hurry up and die! Which she, broken-hearted, proceeds to do.
A multimillionaire begins to fail some in terms of his mental-edge; fortunately, he has a wife who loves him and cares for his needs. The children, however, cannot wait for their father’s life to run its course. They force their father to divorce his wife so they can evict both of them from their home, put him in a “rest home,” where he’s dying with very few people who even come to visit him.
A multimillionaire begins to fail in his mid-nineties; he has plenty of money to pay for care-takers, and plans to eventually die in the home he’s lived in for most of his life. Not content with this, his children fire the caretakers and evict their father, in order to be in position to liquidate his property and use that money for themselves now rather than later.
These are just a few cases to illustrate my point. It used to be the norm that the aged were revered, admired, and looked up to in society. In many societies that is still true today. But in America, all too often, greed trumps relationships, and violates the commandment to honor their father and mother.
I can’t help wondering if the trashing of traditional marriage, epidemic of live-in relationships as the new norm, and skyrocketing divorce-rate, is not resulting in a new House of Horrors for the aged. Some of the cases I’m referring to don’t fall within the disintegration of the home category, but I’d venture to say that most of them do. Since 99% of children pattern their own behavior on that of their parents, if their parents live me-first, my gratification-first, lives, it should not surprise us to discover that life has a way of coming full-circle: as we dish out to others–think children–, so it will be eventually dished back to us.
I haven’t even mentioned another all-too-sad reality: the greed-related animosity and hatred that results when one sibling is perceived to have received more from a parental estate than did another. My father, who was a minister, often told us how monetary value of an item is bad enough by itself, but when you stir in sentimental value, a twenty-five-cent item can result in driving a permanent wedge between two siblings. That’s why my parents kept urging us to choose ahead of time which items we wanted from their possessions while they were still alive so that there would be no relationship-wrecking among us after they passed away. We are doing the same with our children.
I don’t have any answers for all this–only sorrow that it is happening on such a wide scale in America today.
Wednesdays with Dr. Joe 
We are currently on the other side of this. We bought a house with two master bedrooms so that we could move Marland’s nearly ninety-eight-year-old father in with us. He was a very generous man in his day—helped a lot of students through school. Although there are a lot of challenges, we think he deserves to be taken care of now for as long as we can handle it.
This one hit home with me for a number of reasons. 1) because I’m seeing the same stories you relate here; 2) my mom has done a good job of either labeling her keepsakes or has already given them to me and my siblings; and 3) my Christmas story (presently being published) deals with this very issue. By the way, I’m happy to say that my mom is spending her children’s inheritance in a beautiful and expensive retirement home. She and Dad scraped and saved to provide for the five of us, and I’m grateful to say that all of us have told Mom, now 95, “Spend your money on yourself! We don’t want it.” Perhaps it has something to do with the way they raised us.
Sad but true today!!!
How heartless. Is that the way to treat someone who brought you into the world, fed you , clothed you and nurtured you ? No wonder why James said: “the love of money is the root of all evil”.