Can you ever come first?

[billd766]

23 minutes ago, samsensam said:

 

Unlike the west when parents get old and stuffed into a retirement home and visited once a month

 

really?! if this is your experience of your family and friends then i pity you. in my experience; family and friends are extremely supportive. grandparents help out with child care, the elderly are extremely well cared for not only by family but supported by a welfare system and professional health care system.

 

i dont know where you come from but in my country being involved with your children is normal and i would not swap this for thai culture of  'abandonment' of children by fathers who refuse to take responsibility for their children and/or absent mothers. in fact divorced/separated fathers protest and take legal action to be more involved with their children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can only quote from my personal experience.

 

Both my maternal grandparents died at home with their families looking after them.

 

Both my parents died at home with the family looking after them. When my Dad died I was only 14 and 29 when my Mum died in the week before I was posted to Germany with the RAF. My Mum would not tell the family where I was in the RAF as she didn't want to worry me, but fortunately I had written to her telling her that I had got engaged and my aunt persuaded my Mum to write back which is how they got my address and my cousin told me about my Mum.

 

My first wife's Dad died at home as did her Mum a few years later.

 

My Thai wife's Mum died at our place just over 3 years ago in a little house we had built for her and we looked after her for 4 years before she died.

 

Dad died 2 days ago at home with the family looking after him, sadly for me I last got to see him about 6 months ago though I had planned to come down next weekend.

 

My comments about the older parents being stuffed in a rest home and being almost abandoned comes from reading the local paper from back home online, BBC News etc and from when my first wife was working in the healthcare industry years ago. Some of it is out of date but I believe a lot of it is still true today.

 

When I divorced my first wife I "abandoned" as you put it, my first son. He was 19 at the time and working and we still keep in touch.

 

BTW I am English.