A wonderful essay that describes care for aged family members, then and now. Says Hartog: "For the past decade I have been researching cases of family conflict over old-age care in the decades before Social Security. I have found extraordinary testimony about the intimate management of family care: how the old negotiated with the young for what they called retirement, and the exertions of caregiving at a time when support by relatives was the only sustenance available for the old."
He describes the changes in wonderful stories and examples and ends saying: "We may not love the bureaucracies and the institutions that shape our lives today. But would many of us really want to live in a world without them? This is a must read for everyone who is approaching that time of life where the help of others to maintain dignity, health and day-to-day living is a forgone conclusion. |