[pmorici]

"Elderly people should live with their families."

Spoken with the confidence of someone who has never had to care for an elderly relative who was in both mental and physical decline. In any case it is a deeply personal decision without a definitive right or wrong answer. After seeing my Aunt try to care for my grandmother for years only for it to negatively effect their relationship because of her dementia I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing a care facility.

I know people who were so effected by their experience of caring for an elderly relative that they checked themselves into a senior living community in their 50's so their kids would never have to feel like they needed to do the same for them.

[roenxi]

Without disagreeing - if that is what happened to her relationship with someone close to her, what would have happened in a care facility of people who don't have any personal connection at all? These care facilities don't sound like fun either.

Fact is that getting old can be a truly horrible process. Which is why the pro-euthanasia people keep standing up.

[pmorici]

After she was too much for my aunt even with a part time home healthcare worker she did move to a care facility where she has lived for the past ~7 years. The two she has lived at are decent from what I can tell and close enough to family that someone visits her on a pretty much daily basis. Both ways can work.

[batch12]

Damn-- in their 50s. I don't have much time left. I'd rather walk the planet than check myself into a center.