Mom & Me Three Archive

...I thought of the following before I drifted into sleep last night:

    Suppose, as a child, you were in a situation where someone other than your parents handled you during the times when maintenance was the order of the hour and stress was necessary? Typically you interracted with your parents when you were likely to be "well-behaved" and your parents (and supposedly you) were "free to enjoy" each other's hopefully stress free company? Rather like an extreme nanny situation? With whom do you suppose you would be most likely to bond? With whom would you have the most life enhancing relationship? With whom would you be most comfortable? With whom would you think you would be most likely to form a deep, complicated, productive love attachement? With whom do you think you'd most likely rather spend time? Who do you think you'd trust in a crisis? Finally, who would you prefer to see first upon awakening and last before slipping into sleep?
    If we as a society believe that parents, children and relatives are not only entitled to enjoy the above type of commitment but are better off if they do, what makes us think that our elders "deserve" different treatment from their relations? Why do we insist on believing that the older we get the better off we are in the hands of professionals and potential caregivers are better off if they hand the drudgery over to those paid to do it? If we salute parents and relatives who modify their jobs and their lives in order to care for their children in a committed, loving, all encompassing manner (although, of course, in this nation we do not support them as a society), why do we not also salute family members who do the same in order to take care of family elders in this manner? Why do we, instead, encourage such caregivers to hire out the potentially stressful situations and shrug our shoulders in a "well then, you're asking for it" manner when they refuse to do this?

    Later.