Whatever Happened To The Community Of Old

Written on January 22, 2008 by Tezza

While sitting at the Internet Cafe checking my emails and tending to my blog I decided to check in on news back home. I came across this article in the Sydney Morning Herald titled “Discovered: 300 People Die Alone“.

The article goes on to say that “almost 300 people died alone in NSW last year, only to be found weeks or months after they passed away. Most deaths were due to natural causes, but some died by their own hand or in accidents. Most were found in their bedroom or lounge room.”

It is a sad state of affairs where democracy and capitalism has translated to individualism and separation from each other. Where the accumulation of wealth has resulted in dual income households and children being raised in daycare facilities. It’s a travesty to reach old age having contributed to the wider community your whole life only to experience loneliness and solitude.

And in worst cases like “On August 8, 2006, where three sets of remains were brought into the morgue. A person whose body was found by a roadway had been dead for 627 days, it was discovered. Two other bodies, found separately, had been decomposing for more than 14 months.”

I remember growing up in a rural small town where single income families were still the norm. Where mum played a far more traditional role staying at home and looking after us kids. I remember the days when everyone in the small town all knew each other and to an extent what each other were up to. Where as kids we were able to play with other kids on our street without adult supervision.

Pat Daley, a Salvation Army spokesman and a founder of the now-defunct Neighbourhood Watch, said “Australians are an uncaring society, generally speaking, compared to Asian communities and some European communities,” he said. “They tend to look after their elderly. It’s appalling the way we treat our senior citizens in some situations.”

Pat is right, I think in western cultures we all too often associate the elderly as obsolete, that they have somehow passed their usefulness to society and so we ship them off quietly to small little communities we affectionately term “Retirement Villages”. In reality they are just glorified holding cells where the old are kept away from the wider community until they unceremoniously pass on.

Contrast this to life in Hong Kong where you’ll find the young walking the streets with grandparents or elderly parents arm in arm. You’ll see at lunch and dinner time on weekends three generations all sitting down and having a meal together at the local restaurant. Where grandparents still play an integral part of raising the newest generation. They are actively involved with taking them to school, babysitting them and instructing them. Where the elderly are still considered to be “elders” within the community or family unit and as such their advice is still sought after for most day to day issues. It’s a waste not tapping into the wisdom and experience that the elderly contain. Their life experience is priceless.

Hong Kong can teach us about how we can be active in the pursuit of wealth through the western capitalist philosophy yet hold onto the one thing that matters most in this lifetime which is family and community. True contentment and fulfillment can only ever occur when we are able to find this balance. For what is all the effort and hard work for if at the end of your life you die a slow and lonely death.

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Posted in Life Balance