I’ve been reading about the care homes scandal with horror. People employed to care for vulnerable elderly people have instead been slapping, standing on, kicking, sexually abusing, waterboarding and psychologically torturing them. Is this possible? To take someone fragile and sensitive and unleash this cruelty onto them?
Much of the analysis seems to be political – rightly highlighting the risks of cutting costs and focusing on investment opportunities within healthcare, which only seems set to get worse if the Tories are insistent on letting any willing provider look after us when we most need an expert, trustworthy cushion to settle on.
But is it really true that “Too few badly paid, under-supervised carers will often mean neglect”? Is it being underpaid and poorly trained that prompts multiple individuals to practise inhuman cruelty on the generation above them? We call their stage in life a ‘second childhood’, but would those same individuals really practise the same abuses on small children? Would our reaction be different if they did?
What I see is age being devalued all the time, whilst youth and childhood is revered to the point of ridiculousness. I hear people constantly talking about “being the wrong side of twenty-five” or bemoaning the descent into middle age, which begins at 30 apparently (why on dating websites are blokes of 28 only looking for women between 23 and 29? Do they turn into psychotic, shrivelled banshees as soon as they hit 30, plucking out curly nasal hairs and wailing about their need to be impregnated before 35 creeps up on them?).
And, clichéd pet hate as it is, I cannot bloody stand those “Baby on Board” stickers. They symbolise to me the ultimate deification of childhood over humanhood. As if I am going to ram the back of their car if I know they have their granny on board. As if a child or baby deserves to be treated with more respect and kindness than an adult. Because I don’t think they do. A child’s life is not worth more than an adult’s – they are both human. Is it something to do with children’s potential, and the fact that they haven’t yet lived and experienced all the things that adults have and can? If we value this experience so much, why do we value it less in those who have it, or who might be right in the middle of experiencing the wonderful things our mollycoddled kids have such a right to? Enjoying and excelling and contributing much more to society than a semi-cognisant baby drooling on its own drool in the back of a car.
Yes, kids are cute and cuddle-able (apart from newborn babies, who are frankly ugly, writhing little animals). But adults are complex high-achievers – gloriously fucked up, and who knows what unbelievable thing they will create or what hideously inappropriate and amusing thing they will say next?
Perhaps youth is simply revered because it is farthest away from death, which we are supposed to fear so much. But we need to come to terms with ageing, right? Brace ourselves for the changes our faces will undergo, redefine in our imaginations what “I” look like… and then perhaps our culture won’t inflict such loathing on our elderly. Take example from our parents, who cared for their parents tirelessly and with dignity; prepare ourselves to do the same for them, and appreciate this time now, when all of us are physically able – not pushchair or wheelchair bound… talk, gather stories, create memories. This is what will make us all equals in our humanity.
Apparently Carl Jung said: "The afternoon of life must have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage of life's morning." Can we make a car sticker that says that instead?
I remember, as a child, wondering why it was only women and children allowed on the lifeboats of the Titanic. Why didn’t anyone want the Daddies to be allowed on?
ReplyDeleteIf you add up the social and economic value of an adult it totally outweighs the value of a child. Think of all the hundreds of thousands of pounds that have been invested in a UK adult in terms of their upbringing, education and health. Not to mention all the decades of love and nurture that have been poured into them that makes them a vital friend, parent, son or daughter, grandparent, partner or colleague. They are now at the stage where they are ready to make an impact on their communities and the world through their jobs and their other activities. They are a finished product, ready to be useful. A child on the other hand is a much less certain proposition, valued by much smaller networks, with much less invested in it and an uncertain future. It doesn’t make any evolutionary sense to prioritise children over adults.
Down with Children. (Another bumper sticker?)