In the NY Times blog The New Old Age,
there was a post yesterday about laws recently enacted in China,
mandating that the children of aged parents visit at least a certain
number of times and stay informed about the status of their parent's
well-being. The law also says that the children need to be responsive
to "the spiritual needs of the elderly", and that punitive measures
await those who don't comply. I'd written about this myself (The No Responsibility Zone) and at that time I imagined businesses
springing up overnight to
represent the adult children of the very aged, much like talent agencies
do in Hollywood. They'd threaten the parents with: “Listen, if you
want to have direct negotiations with your kids, you’ll have to bequeath
them an
extra ten percent…in advance."
It's barely a joke...
Are legal remedies the only way to insure that people
oversee the care of their aging parents? China
made it plain that they think so, and enacted laws that obligate adult
children to be involved in the care of their parents. Past
generations used to routinely take responsibility for the elderly.
Grandma or Grandpa lived with you, and though it was sometimes a bit of a
strain, you didn't think twice about it. It was just something you did
– the normal course of business – before nursing homes became an
industry, and a good investment for cut-the-corners profiteers.
Read The New York Times blog on aging issues, The New Old Age, at: http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/
Read my blog about China's new laws in "The No-Responsibility Zone" at http://jamielegon.blogspot.com/ and see more posts at jamielegon.com
No comments:
Post a Comment