In a July
Christianity Today article, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway asks this...
"Why is it that we heap scorn on "deadbeat" parents who fail to take care of underage children, but excuse adult children who don't take care of their feeble parents?"
Molly goes on to suggest that one of the reasons we neglect the needs of our aging parents is...
"Maybe it has something to do with our unwillingness to confront death."
Molly also offers several very helpful suggestions for overcoming this emotional stumbling block (
read more...), but I believe that our difficulty in facing death is just one of the reasons we fail to look at caring for our elderly parents with a Christian worldview.
This is my hot-button (
and one of my wips), and I suspect that I am going to step on toes here. Believe me when I tell you that I'm not throwing stones - I'm stepping on my toes, too, but I think it has more to do with our unwillingness to live sacrificially - not just in little moments but in all of life - in order to meet the needs of others.
I'm not naive. I know that there are, sadly, many family relationships that have been severely damaged by dysfunction and abuse that is beyond my comprehension, and the complexity of those situations is way outside of the situations I am addressing. Most of us grew up in more stable - though far from perfect - homes, and I dare say that our own comfort and selfish ambitions are more often the reasons we ignore or relinquish the care of our elderly parents to others.
I'd love to know what y'all think...
(HT - JT at Between Two Worlds)
