Liz Jones – Should we be forced to care for our elderly mothers?

Hi people,

I know I have been unbelievably slack in updating my blog the past three months and I apologise profusely. I have many a lame excuse for my poor show including holidays, exams and loads of uni work so please be kind and show me forgiveness.

Liz Jones cared for her eldery mother for just two weeks

I am not required to write blogs on lecture topics this term so you’ll all be glad to know I will be talking about more fun/controversial/shocking things that have caught my eye in the media.

This week’s focus is on Liz Jones’ article Should we be forced to care for our elderly mothers? 

Much like writing a letter of complaint, I felt the best way to voice my anger and frustration to this article was to write Liz Jones a personal letter. See below:

Dear Liz,

I feel compelled to write to you to tell you how selfish and insensitive you have come selfish and insensitive you have come across to the British public with your shameless confession that you would not look after your mother when she became immobile, fragile and helpless with age.

Yes, credit should be given to you for bringing her into your home at the first signs of her needing you but after just two weeks, you gave up on her. You left the woman who cared, loved and nurtured you through your early years to be move into a nursing home.

And ok, this may be the only option for many people who do not have the time and resources to look after elderly parents but these are not your only excuses for not supporting your mother when she needs you.

You’re too wrapped up in the glory of your home and relationship to care for anyone else but yourself. To say that you didn’t want your Mum to live with you because her wheelchair left nasty tram lines on your Georgian wooden floor is obscene and you should be ashamed of demoralising your mother in this way. Your early childhood (from what we know) was a happy one, you says, “She was a proper, stay-at-home mum, the sort who made stews and ensured [we] never once made my own bed or ironed [our] own clothes. She sacrificed everything for her seven children: she would do housework after we went to bed.”

So for you to give up on your mother so callously is despicable.

To say that having “the strain of having an elderly, incontinent adult to care for does little for marital relationships,” is an absurd judgment to make after just a fortnight of you looking after her, or perhaps more fittingly, “accommodating her” because quite frankly, you did not look after her. You cared for two weeks, and failed. Change the weeks into years, and then it would be justifiable for you to give up and move her to a nursing home.

Yours,

Lisa

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