Well, I am trying to provoke an argument here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> That's what the thread's for. I've always found it useful to explore all viewpoints, including the extreme and the absurd, as part of the process of deciding where the most useful path or paths might lie.

Perhaps you'd prefer to argue about a real life example?

My mother in law ended up in a home when the family could no longer cope with the effects of her Alzheimer’s disease. The last time we had her to stay it was something of a nightmare. She didn't want to be here. She no longer knew who I was and would whisper to my wife "there’s a man upstairs..." At night when we finally persuaded her to go to bed she came downstairs in the night, mistook a dining chair for the toilet, and well.. I’m sure I don’t need to paint a picture. Luckily we have wooden floors there not carpet.

It was a terrible business when she went ‘into care’ but her husband had looked after her well past the point that most would have given up, and he was old and not that fit himself. But he's a fiercely proud man and he certainly wouldn't have allowed us to have her living here instead of with him, even if we could have handled it (we live about 50 mile apart). So the solution was to find somewhere that she could get the care she needed and was close enough for him to visit at times.

So did I visit regularly like a dutiful son in law?. Um no. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" /> Not very often actually. I was always going to do it "next weekend" of course. It was just too painful really, plus I was already fully stretched coping with another family problem. She’d been a lovely person but what was left of her physically no longer contained anything recognisable from the personality she once had. It was a sad end to someone who had been quite a larrikin in her day (and would have laughed at my post above).

Maybe we could argue about what we should have done instead? Our solution was certainly far from perfect for any of us.

But I think I’ll go for the base jumping and living recklessly when my time arrives... i.e. soon.

I do rather like the idea of encouraging old people to take up extreme pursuits and in Dylan Thomas' words "Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light". But perhaps it’s more practical to help us to keep working and contributing in part time ways. Certainly from now on it’s going to get increasingly hard for a proportionally smaller workforce to pay for pensions and adequate aged care.

I think we need to move away from the system of retiring at 60 or 65 and not working again. A way of keeping up some part time work that can allow a small amount of money to trickle in to supplement the pension, keep the mind active, and also keep more older people in touch with the community and the rest of the workforce.

Anybody got any good ideas about what the old buzzards can do (or alternatively recommend a good high risk pursuit for me) ??