are older people useful or painful ?

[shanx]

i read a lot about this subject,and wonder a lot about what the younger generation feel about parent or grandparents, and why do they feel like that ?

[weeal]

I never knew grandparents but as I get older I get closer and fonder of my wee mum (she's 75) even tho she blabs at full volume about all her opinions, which are mostly embarrassing
Love her to bits

[taliesin238]

Im 29 and ive been a senior care assistant in elederly homes for 10 years!! I specialised in EMI!! I love old people!! You can learn sooo much from them even though times and trends have changed so much!!! I can sit and ask and elederly person questions about the past and their life experiences all day!!! As a person reaches their later years they start to mellow, they take a step back and sum up life as something that all youngsters should enjoy as much as possible!! Do what you want to do and dont regret anything because life is too short for regrets!!!
My nanna is still alive and she is 89!! She lives with us where we can take care of her!! I find her sooo testing, i do get annoyed and lose my patients and somethings we just will never see eye to eye!! However, she has seen poverty, disease, death, she as lived through a world war!
There are just so many issues there that we will never understand yet we could learn sooo much from!!!
The elderly are sooo useful in giving us vital information about our past!! If you think about the second world war most people who saw it are dead now!! To sit and talk to a veteran is something that should be honored by the young cos their generation are almost dead!! They can also be very painful, especially to see someone who was once so independant not be able to go to the toilet on time!! Ive nursed some elderly people who never married or had children and they have no relatives or friends!! That is horrible to watch at christmas time in the nursing homes!!
Anyway enough from me, sorry to ramble on a bit!!

[Petal~flower]

you didn't ramble taliesin. It was very moving

[BBWCHATT]

Shanx - just like children and young people and middle aged people, older people are some of both - useful AND painful.

And remember, they are only old on the outside - on the inside they still feel like young people do.


BBWCHATT
The old lady in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

[shanx]

thats fine tal,sometimes you feel like pulling your hair out at them,on the otherhand they are a mine of information,and unknowing to them they can tell you things that you couldnt learn in any book,and they give you a prospective on life, and when they spit a bit off venom at you ,what they are realey saying, love you to bits

[shanx]

love you bbwchatt, wondered where you were xxx

[stewey]

And don't forget, we'll all become one, hopefully, and in years time young uns will be asking the same question about us!

[pussnboots]

Why do the younger generation find old people so amusing/or even a subject worth discussing. It is hard to believe but all you 20s 30s etc or even teens will one day be 80s if you are lucky. You think it won't happen because you are young now but it will happen you can't avoid it. I just hope when you reach this stage in your life you are not on AB telling the young ones that you where their
age once.

[jno]

I was your age once, Puss!

...or was it twice, my memory is so unreliable these days...

[wendilla]

first half of answer a friend sent me this and I thought I would share it
Old Age, I decided, is a gift.

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend. I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love .. I will. I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

[wendilla]

2nd part
Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver. As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

[wendilla]

In reply to your question I would say older people are very useful.When I go to pick up my grandson from school or even take him the majority of people there are grandparents and I know nowadays with the soarng costs of childcare for parents that have to work the grandparents help out by having the children I looked after my grandsons a few days to help out.

[moonshadow]

taliesin if and when my time comes(not quite yet) to go into a care home, I hope someone like you will be there to look after me. Unfortunately a lot of young people today haven't the insight and respect you obviously have for your very lucky senior citizens.
Thank you for sharing that poem with us Wendilla the words are so true, I enjoyed reading it very much.

[taliesin238]

Thank you moonshadow!! ive had some serious one on one conversations with elderly people about all sorts of things in life so i kind of picked up a sence of where they are coming from!!

Wendilla!! I loved that it was superb!!

[radiogaga]

i find older people great, always informative, and i do find myself asking advice regarding life love relationships etc
but i have come across one older person who despite her useful advice, is so high up on her high horse its difficult for me to even talk to her as she has seen it all, been there and done that, sort of thing. she'll say oh when you get to my age youve just about seen everything (she's 73). this its self can be quite frustrating as, you your topic of converstion, idea or suggestion is blown out the water so to speak.
then she cannot admit shes wrong, even when proved so.
yes im ranting now, finding a balance is the key, but when you continue to get hurt you just remove your self.
so a bit of both i suppose to your question. !

[China Doll]

Age does not seem to be a factor on whether you are useful or a pain in the rear.

Just look at me....