Dear Editor,
My late father, a lawyer, said to me a long time ago that parents are obligated to look after their children, but children do not have a similar obligation to look after their parents.
At that moment I resolved to myself to do my best for him.
Many years later, when he became an invalid, he said he was sorry he was causing me to reorganise my life around his care.
I reminded him of what he had said years ago and revealed to him my resolution to look after him, adding that even if the law of the land did not obligate me, I knew it would please the God I serve, who secures my existence on the land: “Honour your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God has given you.”
I am certainly not unique in my priorities. I know of many who do thus, whether religious or not, and even of younger caregivers who used that verse of scripture to resolve the dilemma: ‘Should I attend university so as to graduate later and earn more to look after my mother, or should I look after her now when she appears to need the care?’
In my experience I have never known anyone to suffer existentially after taking the latter decision. Waiting for graduation often proved too late.
As the Catholic Minister to the Palms in the early part of the last decade, I witnessed its transformation from the fearsome place it had become after years of neglect. A former inmate related to me how some staff used to take the extra food that they started to get after the PPP government got into office and pass it over the fence to their friends. He dared not say anything because he was a cripple and was totally under their power. This changed after Ministers Dale Bisnauth and Bibi Shadick had a standoff with the staff, fired some of them and pushed through substantial reforms.
All the filthy old mattresses were burnt and replaced – by donors who were happy to be assured that their donations were actually getting to the needy. The buildings began to be renovated, relieving me of the carpentry I used to have to do to fix unsecured windows that banged during the church service. The meals became attractive and I met a dietician interviewing persons I was visiting, who on occasion solicited my assistance to interpret what some old people were trying to say. After attending to the medical requirements of the diet determined by visiting doctors, the inmates even had the choice of eating vegetarian. The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SSVP), which used to supply the necessities my predecessors and I recommended, was able to divert those resources to other urgent needy causes, so much so that I am not sure the SSVP is still involved, because Minister Manickchand continued the good work.
The observations made by Human Services Minister Jennifer Webster in last Sunday’s SN (‘Many seniors are being neglected by relatives, Webster says’) are completely accurate. In my experience, the problem arises from at least two extremes.
1. Children abused by parents have little idea that they are in any way obligated to be responsible for such relatives when they become enfeebled.
2. Children who were inordinately spoilt and pampered feel that their ‘business’, which in some cases they may even have inherited from their parents, has far greater priority than the care of aged relatives.
So unless we educate our children correctly and insist on their discipline we will have to depend on the state to take care of us in the frailty of old age. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs)
Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai
