Chapter 21
TO MOVE OR STAY PUT
When you read the real estate section of the daily paper you see many advertisements appealing to seniors to buy into their residential facility. Everything is provided one to three bedroom accommodation, recreational facilities, on site medical or nursing care, and a community of like minded residents like yourself.
This presents a temptation to sell your long occupied family home, when the birds have flown the nest, and move into a more-easily managed residence. And possibly, in a more compatible climate. For most this is a difficult decision should we go, or stay?
An older couple I know cannot be budged from their huge family home and it is only they who occupy it. Their children have grown up and moved out. As they get less and less mobile, they are still determined to stay put. The reasons are clear: they are comfortable in their familiar environment; the garden and work around the house keep them active; their friends are in the community; and they want to keep the place as one the family can come home to. So, why move? And besides it would be a fearsome effort to clear out the attic!
In a recent visit to Florida, my wife Ann and I camped in a 1,000 site RV (Recreational Vehicle), trailer and mobile home community, peopled mostly by retirees. Over half of the people there, were permanent residents. The community provided recreation, both facilities and an active well-organized program. Every night there was something going on bingo, dancing, or whatever. They had tennis courts, shuffle board, miniature golf and swimming pools. We noticed the friendly nature of thepeople and the contentment and even joy they expressed. This isn’t the life for everybody, especially singles. Sounds good, but what's wrong with it? For one thing, it represents the leisure or consumer society, and as such will not appeal to those wanting to keep involved in more productive pursuits. Some people are happy spending summers in the north, where they grew up, and the rest of the year travelling, or just going south and staying put for colder months. There are many opportunities and different life-styles for people who do not want to stay put 12 months in the year in the same old house.
The one thing to avoid, as Betty Friedan reports in her book “The Fountain of Age”(7) is total care. As people get less and less mobile they look with interest at the possibility of a nursing home or full-time care facility. They do not want to be a burden to their children and they cannot maintain their own home any longer. So they consider moving into a home where they have a room or two for themselves and with meals and all other services provided. There is no worry about anything anymore, except paying the bill. What is missing is the freedom of making your own decisions about anything even about what you will eat! Everything is done for you. This can be debilitating to the point where you rapidly go downhill. Mental and physical effort has been reduced to the minimum, and it is not good for you! It is important therefore to plan far enough ahead to find alternate living conditions that give you the challenge of fending for yourself until of course, you cannot manage alone.
In some communities there are groups of seniors living together, providing each other with mutual care. They all have their own separate independent quarters but they work together as a team to help each other when the need arises. When one fails in health, the others pitch in to help. This gives the more able ones something significant to do, and provides a common bond among them. At the same time it avoids the “total care” function that is provided in the nursing home. There is a role here for the government.
A government agency could well provide a service to help seniors organize themselves into self-help communities. This would relieve pressure on social funding and at the same time provide a better environment and therefore better health for the members of such a community.
There are many existing forms of community that would be better for the older person than total care. Intentional communities, as described in the chapter on True Community, can act as an extended family. The older members provide services for the group because they are more likely to be at home during the day.
If some form of caring community cannot be found it may be that you will have to do some creating on your own. Work at it. Find others of like mind and create your own community. Provide “mutual care” rather than total care. Like medicines, total care is for when you REALLY need it, but not for the person in any kind of reasonable health.
To move, or stay put, that is the question. Explore the alternatives before it is too late and circumstances make up your mind for you. Then, as one friend told me:
“Think it through. Then don’t fantasize.
Either DO it, or forget it.”
"We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places
do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel
mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."
Mark Twain, 1835 1910