Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991 TAG: 9104150066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE/ RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Younger people should "recognize the wisdom that only comes with living," and should show more respect to their elders who have earned it.
Turner said that in her experience, hotels and restaurants are particularly bad about according privileged status to the young and ignoring or mistreating older people.
Airports, she said, are particularly good about taking care of the needs of older people.
The world in which they live contributes to what Turner sees as the five major concerns of the elderly:
Denial of the aging process.
Fear that their money will run out before their life does.
Not wanting to be a burden on their children.
Never, ever wanting to go to a nursing home.
And, if they drive, the loss of independence by having to give that up.
Turner, who has lived in 10 nursing homes while compiling information for a book on how to choose a home, has some advice for older people who have those concerns.
Sometimes, "Older people use age as a cop-out," Turner said recently.
"They say that `because I'm 72 or 75 or whatever, I can be expected to have arthritis.' " She disagrees.
"Older people should exercise, as recommended by their physicians. I take a lot myself.
"Use TV as an opportunity to know what's going on," not as "some sort of bromide.
"Contribute something in conversation.
"Be very, very careful not to be so emotionally involved with children or grandchildren" that you make a financial promise - such as putting someone through college - that will devastate you financially. "Remember younger people in wills."
Turner also has advice for the grown children of elderly parents.
Sometimes, those children "practically take over the lives of parents or grandparents who are alert and capable of handling their own finances and checkbooks, of selecting items at the grocery and choosing what they wear."
"Unfortunately, many parents and grandparents are living in retirement homes selected by their children because the children want their parents to live in the same town or city they do.
"The children give up nothing, but the parents give up everything: their neighborhood, their friends, their doctor, their minister."
"While many people may realize that for whatever reason they can no longer live alone, they often prefer living in the community where they have been living."
She suggests that many parents would gladly move to the towns where their children live if they were not pressured to do so.
Sometimes, even when they've made the choice to move into a retirement home of their own will, people "become disenchanted with their new lifestyle away from friends and their usual environs."
Rather than counsel them to try to move, Turner said, "I try to help them understand, with Thomas Wolfe, that you cannot go home again."
by CNB