When I’m ancient and stuck in a nursing home, I’d like my children to visit me.
But would I want them to visit only because they’re being forced to? So they resent every minute subtracted from something they’d rather be doing? No.
While I don’t want that kind of world, Barry Davis seems to. Davis, a New York Times reader, says that he and his friends don’t hear from their kids as much as they’d like.
He praises a new Chinese law ordering children to visit aging parents. Nothing he has seen “in recent times so manifests our common humanity” as this facile compulsion. “We need Congress to pass an American version of the ‘Protection of Rights and Interests of Elderly People’. . . .”
“We,” kemosabe?
I’m in favor of children, however old themselves, visiting their aging parents. I’m also in favor of a free society in which everyone respects the rights and sovereignty of others — including those of children who have left the nest and now live as independent adults. In such a society, relationships are voluntary, whether we’re exchanging money and goods or time and attention. Persons respect the fact that we each have our own lives and priorities. We deal with each other because we want to; we’re not outlaws if we don’t.
That’s a basis for good will. Things are different if every time we interact with another person, it’s at the point of gun, with every participant’s actual judgments and desires treated as irrelevant.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Forced Visits”
Charity, done at gunpoint, begins to look a lot less like charity and more like robbery. Morality dies from the same impetus.
There’s an old saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. What are those compulsory visits like, once you force the kids to go? I know what they would be like in my family! Not all families resemble the Waltons.
Liberty is the freedom to do what’s right without compulsion.
License is the freedom to do what’s wrong without restriction.
Libertarianism only works when people use their liberty correctly. It fails when they pervert liberty into license, and results in this sort of oppressive law.
Instead of railing against such laws and the people who propose them, maybe we should look around at our fellow citizens and see who’s perverting liberty and thus screwing things up for the rest of us. Maybe if we brought some shame on those who neglect their elderly parents, we could visit our own freely and without compulsion.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Just finished my book on Mom, Mother’s Stone (http://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Stone-extraordinary-Phyllis-Andersen/dp/1490358889/?tag=thecofcoa-20) where I make the observation that many seniors facing their end of days would benefit enormously by having an advocate… or even family who visited.
In her case, except for me, none of the descendants came to be with her one whit. Despite being family, they are scum. What is the benefit of forcing scum to behave as you think they should? A) They remain scum and B) It provides a wrongful image that they are not scum. Moreover the intended beneficiary is not better off.
Every Thursday, I visit my 102-years-old aunt and take her out to dine. She says that she’s the envy of everybody else who lives there. If others choose to warehouse their elders, that’s their fault, and I do mean fault. For me, love is too important to ignore. And that’s enough.
James:
How would you define those who “neglect their elderly parents”?
Judge not, lest ye be judged.
How does visiting shame on others necessary for you to visit your own parents and without compulsion?
You are free to visit your parents and other family members and friends without casting judgment on those who don’t.
People such as Barry Davis are the ones who are perverting liberty. They want you to live by their rules. I’d tell them to butt out of other people’s lives.
I would ask Mr Davis: DUDE! did you ever think there may be a reason your kids don’t want to see you? You seem to be an even more grouchy old man than I! Not to mention one of those, “THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW” types.
I’ve been an orphan myself nearing 20 years now. I really, DESPERATELY wish I had spent more time with my parents than I did in my earlier adult years. In your case, I’m not sure your offspring will feel quite the same way when you go to glory.