Campaign to end loneliness

Just at the moment I am not alone because two of my daughters need me thank goodness but I know this won't last. My OH spends a lot of time doing his own thing and taking over things I used to do. All in all I think I suffer from loneliness despite at present having lots to do - you can be lonely in a crowd.

Having arthritis doesn't help because I even have trouble walking the dog and as for pilates and exercise classes they are none starters. Even knitting and crafting have gone because they are no longer pain free. Yes loneliness is a state of mind but it has to be a state of the body too.

It does seem strange that there are moves afoot to take away some of the benefits for better off pensioners - bus passes, heating allowances - when these (certainly bus passes) can help to alleviate loneliness. Thumbs up to Gransnet though where you can usually find someone to chat with.

Yes, quite mishap and let's face it:
Not everyone has had children and/or grandchildren
Some older people outlive their children.
Some people have children who have emigrated
Some people in their 80s and 90s have
Etc
and as you imply, a mobile workforce, willing to move about the country (with their nuclear family), suits the purposes of modern business.

My MIL sometimes envies friends whose kids have not moved away (some of them on benefits for decades). Her kids all have had high flying careers in comparison, and you ain't going to have one of them by staying in a run down area where all the factories have closed, are you?

It was very interesting the other day when I rang her up and she sounded twenty years younger.
Turns out a friend has visited with her 3 year old grandson for the afternoon. Just being in a room with a little boy had given her a huge boost. Older people are not designed to be on their own - they are meant to be sitting in the corner, watching the kids and giving pearls of wisdom now and then.
But the ex culture secretary lecturing people is not going to suddenly make people be kind and caring is it.

listen to this. So sad

Jess, "sitting in the corner, watching the kids and giving pearls of wisdom now and then" just about describes me when I go to visit the family for the weekend! Nowadays the children have their own concerns and activities - Scouts, Cubs, Beavers. swimming, ski-ing (yes, in Berkshire on artificial slop) shooting... It's difficult to be useful these days, but it's still good to be there with them.

Yes, that rings a bell annodomini. My younger grandson demanded on the phone that I should go up and see him at the weekend. His mum reminded him that he has a camp to go on. (well, not sad for him. Just for me)

Age UK, Contact the Elderly have tea parties for the elderly housebound. Each month those who join are collected from their homes by volunteers and taken to a hostess's house where they all enjoy a get together and a tea. I'm a hostess and it's good fun. They like coming to me as we start off with a big sherry. There's around 12 in a group and they all get to know each other - it's lovely. Maybe you know someone who would enjoy this or maybe you could host.

How closely involved were your grandparents in your lives?

Not involved at all. They had all died by the time I was born.

Is it easier/more difficult these days to be as involved in your grandchildren's lives?

Distance is most certainly an issue + financial and physical issues, which are also v. pertinent.

I do find questions like these a tad formulaic at times.

We're a very diverse bunch, us grannies!

I don't think there's a blanket solution to this problem. It very much depends on an elderly person's health, their ability to get out and about, whether they have access to good amenities, etc., etc.

Elderly people are, like any other age group, all different. Some elderly people might be content to "sit in a corner and watch the grandchildren play", whereas others resent the disruption that young children inevitably bring, and make their disapproval known.

I think Jeremy Hunt has got a cheek to suggest that the norm should be that the children of elderly parents should care for them. Not everybody has had a good relationship with their parents, many people have to work full-time, they may have their own health issues, and some people are also helping with child care. It's all very well talking about Asian families, but such families are often used to living within extended families and take it for granted, whereas this is not the norm in the UK.

I know someone who provided self-contained accommodation for her dad but as he got older he required more and more support and often had little "accidents" that required extra laundering and cleaning up. It came to such a point that her nerves were in shreds and she was taking medication for anxiety and depression. In the end, on the point of a severe breakdown, she finally agreed to her dad going into a home - and I think that's a perfectly reasonable decision to make and she doesn't need the likes of Jeremy Hunt to make her feel guilty.

Hunt has a point though. Our culture is veering towards simply putting our old folk in a home because it's more accepted these days.

I was irritated to hear Jeremy Hunt comparing the way in folks in the UK care for their elderly relatives with populations in China and Asia. It just felt like another stick to beat us all over the head with. He talks as though these other cultures provide their elderly with wonderful, loving care, whereas here in the Uk we can't wait to put elderly relatives in 'a home'.

This just isn't born out by the experience of those who work with families, or by looking around at your friends and neighbours. This smacks of panic in government circles about the growing number of elderly folks for whom physical or mental health issues will mean that either 24 hour, or close to it, care will become necessary. The additional impact of families being spread over large geographical areas, or countries, because of work makes it much more difficult for some relatives to be as fully involved in care as they would otherwise be. I'm sure we all have numerous examples that contradict Mr Hunt's beliefs.
Residential care homes are just not full of healthy folks who could be living at home, if only their selfish children would shape up.
Grrrrrr.

You reckon aka and not because there are no other alternatives?
He is presumably talking about the "oldest old" who cannot get out and about. Their offspring may have jobs, their own health problems or responsibilities caring for younger family members.
anno you sound a bit sad about that. many of use would love to be more involved in their lives - but it is only really feasible if you live round the corner isn't it.
I lived in the same household as on GM. The other one we used to spend time with in holidays but she was not "involved" as she lived in another town.

He's got a Chinese wife, apparently.

Yes, I reckon. We're too ready to dump the elderly when they are too old to be useful and because it's their turn to need some TCL.

Another interviewee on Today said that the Chinese are building a care home for the elderly that will take 5000 people! The one-child policy is having ramifications!

Yup a lot of those "asians looking after their elderly" stereotypes relate to large families where the daughter-in-law's role was to look after PILs.
And how about the glorious tradition explained to me by an Indian Muslim woman with one daughter and no husband:
It is a total taboo to accept any financial or material help from your daughter. Not even a meal out. Even if you have a meal in her house you should leave some money. (it is of course son's responsibility to provide for parents.)
Not sure how widespread this is, but where does that leave the ageing mothers of daughters but no sons Mr Hunt?

What out the appalling treatment of widows in India? They seem to have been left out of the equation. The shorter lifespan of many in Asia does not seem to have been taken into account. Also their willingness to pack lots of people together in one room.

I was a voluntary Home Visitor with Age Concern (as it was then for 10 years) and I find Jeremy Hunt's simplistic analysis really irritating. I did meet lonely older people in my work but the causes were rarely that they were being ignored by those around them.

One man I visited presented himself as a forlorn widower, devoted to his dead wife. I discovered later, by chance, that he was a vicious bully who beat his wife and children and had just been banned from the local pub for threatening people with his walking stick. No wonder he was alone and lonely. There have always been bad parents whose children want nothing to do with them once they are grown and independent. Vicious violent people and bad parents grow old just like everybody else and do not become charming, likeable or less violent nor good parents just because they are old.

Many older people I met had family who cared about them but work had moved them away from their childhood homes. I met children making heroic long week end trips to visit parents and even more, unable to visit even weekly, who rang to speak to parents regularly and did everything they could to make sure they were well cared for. These older people do need help to get out and meet other people, but please do not blame the children.

Jeremy Hunt also forgets that older people used to their own homes and independence do not want to give that up and go and live in the spare bedroom or converted garage of a son or daughter, assuming they have a room spare. The days when granny shared a room with the children is, thankfully, long gone.

When my mother died an Egyptian friend asked if my father would be moving in with me and was taken aback when I said HE wouldnt contemplate it. He lived 80 miles away, was completely independent and quite capable of looking after himself and his home and had a very active and busy life and many friends who had known him and my mother for 20 years or more. The last thing he wanted to do was give up his home, friends and social life to live in my back bedroom.

Other older people complained of loneliness but rejected every effort to help solve their problem, refusing offers of transport to Social Centres, having a befriender visit or taking part in any local activities.

Nowadays I doubt if anyone goes into a care home if there is any alternative. I have been involved with three relations who moved into care. One chose to move in a home after a spell in hospital following psychiatric treatment for depression and self neglect. The other two, well social services decided in their wisdom that two disabled people both with advanced dementia were safe to be left at home with three half hour visits a day. After 6 medical interventions in the 3 days, after the most severely demented one returned home from hospital, plus a heroic carer who stayed 5 hours one night trying to get my aunt upstairs to bed and me doing a 40 mile round trip twice a day to check on them, I decided enough was enough and they went into a care home.

Sorry to rant on so long but silly speeches from government ministers on topics in which they should be better informed, make me furious

And the solution is......?

This isn't concern for the 'lonely elderly'. It's just another way of cutting costs. If each family takes in their elderly relatives it will save the money paid to the care homes. Of course looking after an incontinent dementia sufferer may not be conducive to family life but it will save millions of pounds a year. Healthy older people sometimes need care to remain in their own homes. If it's all provided by family then that's even more money saved and think of all the houses that will be freed up.

Then there are the jobs that will become available as women have to give up work in order to care for the elderly relative. Yay we increase job vacancies and therefore cut unemployment at a stroke.

OK so maybe I'm a cynic but does this government really care about the elderly or about saving money?

I have empathy with Galen on this one. The reason I still work is to at least have some contact with people, without it I wouldn't see anyone from one week to the next with family and old friends 200 miles away. Not being familiar with an area of the country does not help but I was amazed to read that I was not alone and that so many others are reported to be lonely or feel isolated. I don't know what the answer is but I assume we must find a solution otherwise the ramifications will be echo for generations. I suspect remaining geographically close to family and friends is the key.

No doubt ps, in an ideal world the key would be to stay geographically close to family and friends. But children move away for work as indeed my sisters and I did and our children in turn also did. I feel quite envious of those grans who live close enough to their adult children to help out, but on the other hand... .

... and the solution is .... to understand the complexity of the issue and not make silly simplistic speeches.

For nearly the last 10 years governments have been spending considerably more than they have been collecting in as taxation. Taxing the rich will not solve the problem, we, all tax payers, either have to pay more tax or accept less expenditure on all counts including that going to the elderly, but I for one would prefer, for example, to lose my higher tax allowance as a retired person if that means there will be more money (or no cuts) to spend on the care of the physically and mentally frail.

If Jeremy Hunt wants more community and voluntary involvement in helping older people lonely because of restricted incomes and mobility let him come up with some thought through proposals of how this can be done. Not silly comments about families looking after their elderly. My experience is that most families love and want to care for their parents but if you live a long way away, or, have other family commitments it is not always easy. All old people are not loveable grannies and a number of older people who are ignored or neglected by their families are in that position as a result of their own actions when they were younger.

In countries where families live close together in multi-generational households his simplistic solutions may apply but he ignores the fact that the Chinese government has recently introduced laws to force children to look after elderly parents because in a country where many children now live hundreds of miles from their parents, they too are having a problem with isolated lonely older people.

Housing with Care can be an alternative to Care Homes and more are being built. Generally these are flats but many ground floor ones have small gardens so pets can be accommodated - some even have dogs walkers coming in, so things are improving. Your own flat, purpose built, complete independence but carers on hand when necessary. Most also have laundrettes, restaurants, visiting hairdresser and outings.

The trouble is so many elderly aren't prepared to move (too much effort, why should they), neither do they want befrienders (do gooders) and cannot be persuaded out to social clubs (don't know anyone there!)etc.

(I could never have lived with my mother - I left at 18. My DH said he would move out if she moved in and my DC all agreed. She wouldn't live with me either - said I was too bossy.)

If I had to live with my mother it would be a toss up as to which of us killed the other first.