Our vulnerable, aging parents

Spending the holidays with my 85-year-old mother and never leaving her side for a week was truly an eye-opener. The average newborn baby sleeps about 20 hours daily and does not produce much in their environment — it is interesting that as people become very elderly, the amount of time they spend sleeping increases dramatically and their productivity decreases dramatically. The elderly are rapidly approaching the same existence they experience when they were first brought into the world. For the most part we have no problem caring for newborn babies, and we should understand that we also should care for the elderly as they approach terminal stages of their lives.

It is tragic when children abandon their parents and grandparents at the very time when those individuals are at their most vulnerable.