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<title> Who Should Look After Grandma? </title>
Two years ago, I worked extra in an old people's home. The place filled me with anxiety. The pensioners spent most of their time in their rooms, sleeping or reading (those who still had an eyesight good enough). Some sat looking out the window for hours. I caught myself hoping I would never be so old that society would have to take care of me. And when it came to my parents, I would of course take care of them myself. They could look after my children when they got home from school, tell them stories and play with them. It would be just like in the good old days, when the family took care of the elderly, without intervention or help from society. Thinking about it now, however, I realize that the issue if far more complex than what I thought back then. In the society of today, taking care of your elderly yourself would be very difficult, if not impossible.
	First, I would like to reveal some of the myths about the "good old days". We tend to think that the elderly always have had a high status in the past. They enjoyed great respect, and their wisdom was widely known. However, this was not necessarily the case. In almost all societies, old people have had a low status. Of course, not very many people turned that old in those days, but those who did could expect having to struggle hard for their bread and butter. In some mountain districts of Japan, it was common that the elderly drew back up in the mountains to die when they felt that they were getting weak. If they did so by their own free will is questioned by anthropologists. Presumably they were subject to strong social pressure. In other cultures where resources were limited, the elderly might even be killed when they became a burden to society. Turning to our own country, old people have not been treated much better. Those who came from relatively wealthy circumstances were usually put in the "exception cottage" while the oldest son (usually) took over the main house. If you did not have any children, or if they were incapable of taking care of you, you could look forward to being sold at an auction as a pauper. Another option was to walk from farm to farm and do as much work as you were capable of in exchange for food and shelter. 
	Still, there were of course cases in which the family looked after their elderly in a way that worked well for both parties. Why could this not be possible today? Well, there are two main reasons. First, the aging process is not the same today as it was then. Today, medicines cure infections that were terminal a hundred years ago. People live longer for each generation, but the number of years they manage on their own has not increased very much. Taking care of an Alzheimer patient is a full-time job today. It is admirable that senile persons were taken care of within the family a hundred years ago, but one has to bear in mind that the sufferer did probably not survive for as many years then as he/she may now. Nutrition might be poor, and cuts and wounds the person got as a result from the disease often led to terminal infections. 
	The second reason, which is perhaps more important, is that society has changed. In the old peasant community, people worked on the farm or at least not very far from it. The families gathered at meals, and the women worked at home most of the time. Thus, there was someone around who could have an eye to the elderly every now and then. This is rarely the case today. There would not be much use of having your elderly parents living with you if you were not there to mind them. In order to be able to take care of our elderly at home, we would have to adapt to a different standard of living. Let us say that the average Swede needs some kind of help when he/she reaches the age of 70. The children are then probably around 40-45, that is, they are at the top of their career. They would have to quit their jobs or start working part time to be able to look after their parents. Presumably, this would be the woman's duty in most families, which would be setback for equality. It would also lead to a reduced income for the family. Even with the parents' pensions included, it would be difficult financially to move to a larger apartment. Thus, most families would have to adjust to living in overcrowded conditions. Moreover, families are spread all over the country, or even the world, today. Many elderly would probably oppose having to move to a new city and leave their well-known surroundings. 
	To me it is obvious that the state, not the family should look after the elderly. It might not be the ultimate solution, but it is probably the only possible one in this society. If we want to take care of our elderly ourselves, we have to start by making a thorough change of society as a whole. And what would that change look like? Going back to the peasant community if the 19th century is probably not a good alternative. I think state-funded facilities for eldercare are necessary in the society of today. To me, the question is not whether they should exist or not - what we need to discuss is how to improve them. The system we have today may very well be invalid, but to simply put the responsibility on the families will not do much help.
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