Yeshua Explored
2nd January 2023
Oldies
Do we really honour our fathers and mothers?
Let’s first view some statistics from Age UK, concerning issues for the elderly in the UK.
- One million pensioners in the UK live in severe poverty
- £3.8 billion in benefits for old people goes unclaimed every year
- 37% of older people who are not online are unaware that advice is available
- Nearly 1000 older people are admitted to hospital daily for trivial reasons
- Only about a third of people aged 50 and over think that older people who receive care services are treated with dignity and respect.
These statistics seem to point to a lot of elderly people who are being let down. We usually use the phrase ‘let down by the system’ but then we have to ask, what is the system? Is it the State’s responsibility to be the primary carers for our elderly … or their own sons and daughters?
Of course, as the family statistics already indicated, families are shrinking and there’s a good chance many of these elderly folk won’t have children. But many will, so what has happened to honouring our father and mother?
With the ‘original model’, with parents living close by their children or even in the same house, primary care is not an issue. Even though there may be State involvement, it would be at the children’s initiative. But in our new ‘western model’, can there not be a hint of, out of sight out of mind? Children who have done well financially may well be happy to forgo their inheritance and be unconcerned to see it channelled into the pockets of a care home. They possibly feel their consciences are salved and that an occasional visit to the ‘old ‘uns’ would be the sum total of their responsibility. Is this honouring their parents? Of course, this is a can of worms as there will be children, because of circumstances, unable to honour their parents in the way they would like. What I am looking at here is the ‘bigger picture’ in our modern society of the ease with which many children would hand their parents over to the State for their welfare in their ‘latter years’. Once we give the State control of our parents, then we find ourselves in a very different environment, with a very different moral framework than if we were nurturing them within the extended family home. Here are a couple of worrying facts:
· The wholesale drugging of the elderly in both private and public nursing homes has reached epidemic levels, with the use of anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety drugs (tranquilizers) and antidepressants. Patients are being harmed and their lives cut short as a direct result. These drugs are highly dangerous when prescribed to anyone, but when prescribed to the elderly the risks for diabetes, stroke and sudden death are greatly increased. (Citizens Commission on Human Rights UK)
· Surveys suggest most UK doctors support legal assisted dying, and most people want it. A series of articles published by The BMJ today, explore the debate around assisted dying, in which, subject to safeguards, terminally ill people who are near to death, suffering, and of sound mind, could ask for drugs that they would take to end their lives … Jacky Davis, Consultant Radiologist at the Whittington Hospital in London, points to a recent survey showing that most UK doctors support legislation for assisted dying, while a 2015 poll showed that about 80% of the UK public support a change in the law. Yet the BMA, which represents UK doctors, has long been opposed to assisted dying, despite calls for it to adopt a neutral stance. (British Medical Journal)
Honour your father and your mother …
Before we round this up, we need to be aware that honouring parents is not just an activity we do when they are most needy i.e. when they are old and dependent. There is no time marker on this command. We need to honour them at all stages of our relationship with them, whether as a dependent child or an independent adult. We need to give them the respect they deserve purely through who they are. We may think that they don’t need our respect, in fact we may mostly take them for granted, but they will always deserve our respect, because that is what the Commandment implores us to do.
We return to the basic message. Society has changed enormously since Bible times. Community living has given way to narrower horizons, driven by the individualism that encourages us to live lives of personal ambition and to pursue happiness. Subtle indoctrination of humanistic philosophy has assured us that the State knows best and your conscience is clear, hand over your burdens to us. Of course, there will be scenarios, perhaps where you simply don’t have the space, time or resources, when you are forced to rely on the NHS or private care homes. But the point being made here is a general one, not a specific one. Our society encourages the fragmentation of community, particularly multi-generation family living. Go west young man … and seek your fortune. So, it is up to us all individually to decide, given our particular circumstance, whether we are honouring our parents or not. More so for Christians who are still bound by the fifth commandment, to examine their consciences before God and decide whether they are truly giving honour in the way that God would want them to.
By way of contrast, The Sinner’s Charter would probably read something like this:
Do what seems best for your parents, at all times, but rest assured that society can ease the burden of an aged relative, so trust it to look after your loved ones in a satisfactory manner.
This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp
