June 6, 2022
Having worked professionally with seniors for over 15 years, I have often asked myself whether we, as a society, actually care about the elderly. I know I care, and I know our company cares, and our industry cares. It would be impossible to estimate the number of amazing individuals I have encountered during my career who devote themselves wholeheartedly to this generation.
But what about society in general? The sad truth is that society does not care about the elderly.
Throughout the last two years of the COVID pandemic, our society’s utter callousness towards the elderly has been exposed. Early in the pandemic, we were told that violating quarantine, social distancing, and/or masking rules was equivalent to “Killing Grandma.” Remember that one?
Perhaps this was the right sentiment. After all, COVID-19 focuses like a laser beam on the elderly and otherwise immunocompromised. “Grandma” (and of course, “Grandpa” as well) really was, and still is, the primary concern.
But almost immediately, this expression proved to be a façade; it was a way of virtue-signaling one’s obedience to the powers that be.
No where was this reality more evident than in New York, where thousands of elderly nursing home residents died because of state policies requiring COVID-positive patients be sent to those very facilities. The virus spread like wildfire among the most vulnerable population imaginable (elderly AND severely immunocompromised), and the rest, sadly, is history.
And it wasn’t just New York. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois were guilty of the same negligence, albeit to lesser degrees than the Empire State. Here in California, we avoided this blatantly disastrous policy, but we had severe problems of our own. In skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities, residents testing positive were to isolate in their own rooms rather than being taken to another location. In one of our previous articles, we detail how COVID was able to spread so fast under these conditions.
Was anyone concerned about “killing grandma?”
If that wasn’t bad enough, thousands of assisted living and nursing home residents across the country were confined to their rooms, sometimes for months at a time. The mental and emotional, not to mention physical harm caused by these protocols was nothing short of catastrophic. At Fairacres Manor in Greeley, Colorado, the residents held a protest in which they chanted that they would “rather die from COVID than from loneliness.” This was only lightly covered in the national media.
Our COVID policies also betrayed a clear lack of interest in helping the elderly. For the bulk of the pandemic, nearly all the debate focused on measures that really had nothing to do with the elderly, at least not specifically – lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and remote learning. Residents in long-term care facilities were already locked down, regardless of the general policy. Masks were and still are required in such locations. Those living at home were isolating as well. Social distancing was a given among those over 65.
The tension, acrimony, and in many cases the outright hatred and vitriol that revolved around these policies – from both sides, to be sure – all had to do with how they were implemented vis-à-vis everyone else.
The reality of the pandemic showed what has been true for the longest time – our society really doesn’t care about the elderly, at least not nearly enough. The truth is that we often forget about those that have entered the later stages of life. “Put mom in a home” has been a common refrain throughout the years. As someone who has always had a particular affinity for the elderly, I often ask myself why this is so. I have come to several conclusions.
We live in a culture obsessed with youth – being young, looking young, feeling young, and acting young (often acting like children). Billions of dollars are spent every year to “reverse” the effects of aging, as if that were even possible.
More viscerally, the elderly remind us of our own mortality. I often compare two great killers – cancer and Alzheimer’s disease – that together shine a light on this issue. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. It can affect anyone, and at any age. Consequently, we all know someone who has died or at least suffered from cancer. This causes us to be desensitized just enough to be able to handle the anguish of seeing a loved one battle this disease.
Alzheimer’s is different. It attacks your mind. It is a gradual wasting away of every part of you. It’s horrific, it’s excruciating, and terribly frightening. It is not uncommon for people to remark that they lost their loved ones years before they actually died. Cancer is tragic. Alzheimer’s is devastating.
But despite the growing prevalence of the early-onset variety, Alzheimer’s predominantly affects the elderly. So we can be blind to it, if we choose. We can surround ourselves with our spouses, our children, our friends… anyone not that much older than we are. And when we first notice that “something’s wrong with Mom [or dad],” we can curtail our visits, talk about assisted living, and generally shield ourselves from the painful reality of aging. And we can watch as our society forgets about the elderly.
This process of willful amnesia is made even easier (at least with a little cognitive dissonance thrown in) because the elderly are not as economically productive as younger generations. We are now living years after the average retirement age, and for some, this makes them less important.
Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, gave an interview in The Atlantic several years ago in which he expressed his desire to die no later than age 75. If I were to tell you the same thing, that could simply be my personal preference for my own life. But when one of the most prominent physicians in the country, who helped author the most prominent health law in decades, gives an interview in one of the most prominent magazines in the country, he is not-so-subtly suggesting that this should be the ideal for everyone, or at least most people. The message is clear – don’t get old.
When I first read this quote, all I could think about my grandmother, whom my sister, cousins and I used to call Geega.
Geega lived to be 87. She was active and vibrant until two days before she died of a massive stroke. By Dr. Emmanuel’s standards, she should have died 12 years earlier.
When I was growing up, to say she was a tremendous grandmother would have been a massive understatement. She was always there, an intimate and crucial part of our lives. But if I look at things clearly, the last 12 years of her life were the best. Never mind that she retired well before 75. Never mind that she spent nearly two decades as someone without as much “economic value.” The last 12 years of her life were priceless.
That’s why Dr. Emmanuel’s perspective – the cold, calculated reduction of a human being to numbers on a spreadsheet – is so terrifying. Remember, he’s the same individual who is also on record saying that the ideal health care system involves rationing, and it’s the elderly that should be rationed out.
One of the main barometers of civilization is, or at least should be how we treat those that cannot contribute on an economic level (to say nothing of the fact that the elderly have spent their entire lives contributing).
Our society tends to forget this. We also have the awful habit of being ungrateful. Your parents raised you. The dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, the temper tantrums, the doctors’ appointments, the playdates, the birthday parties, taking you to and picking you up from school… and who can forget puberty?!? (You weren’t the only one that suffered.)
Granted, there are those that have gone through tremendously difficult relationships with their parents. Fair enough. But for most of us, the amount of gratitude that we owe to our parents is immeasurable, especially as they age, and we are given the opportunity to care for them as they cared for us.
The gratitude that we have for those that came before us is what drives us every day at Virtue Home Care. It is our mission to care for the elderly in the same way we hope to be cared for in our twilight years. Society may not care about the elderly, but you better believe we do.