A couple weeks ago Care UK brought out a shocking report which suggested that only one in three adults would have room in their homes for their elderly parents.
In many ways it was simply providing empirical evidence for something we have long realised, and even commented upon in Financial Adviser.
It is this social phenomenon that in many ways is making the long-term care issue a prolonged and so unnecessarily expensive one in terms of public policy.
One of the distinguishing features of the Confucian cultures is that they take great pride in looking after their elderly parents. It is something we should take to heart.
In fact, they see it as a duty, part of the intergenerational obligations shared between parents and children.
Parents commit themselves to looking after their children from birth until the end of their university years, after which their offspring go off to make a life for themselves.
As the parents reach retirement, certainly their later mature years, the children then have three major social obligations: first, to introduce their own children to their grandparents, and not in a superficial way, but in a meaningful and profound way in which the children will appreciate the significance of the family line.
The other significant way is that the adult children should return to do the heavy lifting for their elderly parents, the occasional shopping, small home repairs, making sure they are not ripped off by itinerant so-called builders.
But it is the third duty, which is called upon in cases of the many age-related illnesses, such as dementia, in which the grown-up children should step up to the plate and look after their vulnerable parents.
Not by offloading them in a home and visiting for a few minutes once a month at best, but in the family home, feeding and cleaning them and providing the much-needed conversation and comfort they deserve in their last days.
This is at the very heart of the social compact. That is when vague social concepts such as family values really come in to play; what was disappointing about the Care UK study, was not only the near one-third who would put their elderly parents in a home, but those who admitted they would have to ‘think about it.’ They should think about their attitudes.
