Aging & Ethical Democracy

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/unenforced-filial-responsibility-laws/
21. November 22, 2008 8:44 am

Link

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/22home.html?hp

Aging & Ethical Democracy

I’m trying to understand this. The fact is, elderly persons could indeed move to retirement communities even in these parlous economic times times. They should if they want to. But their children, inheritors of their parents’ assets, want the biggest bang for their real estate buck and you simply cant get that now.

I say don’t hold parents and grandparents hostage to the economic situation. Don’t foreclose their finite future. If you cant sell, rent it out and wait out the economic maelstrom. The elderly have a few more golden years to live and the present mess isn’t going to straighten out for a while.

Also, to continue to live out their years in familiar surroundings is psychologically beneficial for the elderly and their younger kin. Transitions are stressful. Staying put in the home you love and dying in it eventually is maybe the best thing. So maybe NOT being able to move because of the real estate mess is actually a blessing in disguise for the elderly and their children and grandchildren.

Money isn’t everything as we are all finding out. The problem is not money but greed.
In fact, money turns out to be worthless but it can turn the world upside down.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.Blogspot.com