Just Urban Living, Not Urban Actions

JUST URBAN LIVING, NOT URBAN ACTIONS

Old age comes without any effort but getting through it happily is not that effortless. It is ironical that the parents who teach their children about respecting elders are themselves later on not respected by their own children. They all have their side of the story, so many excuses but no excuse is sensible enough to leave your parents in an old age home. The increasing crowd in old age homes is saddening. One of the reasons is increasing cost of living due to which children start to see their parents as a liability and look for ways to get rid of them. When one visits old age homes and involves themselves in a quality conversation with elderly people there, it is upsetting to know that their children do not even visit them while they are living in better house conditions in the same town. They have nobody except each other to talk to and be it at any age we all want a family for company.

Overlooking elderly and not caring about the parents who have given you everything is an extremely grave matter which is observed all over the globe. The main question that is to be answered by these children is that do their parents deserve this abandonment at the point when children are the support system, all they want is a little time out of your busy day. It is true that as one becomes old they become more child – like but it is their time to enjoy and the amount of wisdom they have would be guiding hand for the children only. Unfortunately, it is more in urban areas where the children do not want to stay with their parents.

In the last 50 years, the Indian population has tripled and there has been an increase of about four times in the number of senior citizens.  With change in times, various laws came into being and our Constitution stands for right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases. Both the State list and the Concurrent list provides for old age pension and social insurance and social security. Then there is Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act is a regulation originated by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India and tries to address the problems of the elderly population of our country in various ways. Section 125(1) and Section 125(2) Code of Criminal Procedure^[1] provides for persons having sufficient monetary means to take care of their parents if the latter are unable to take care for themselves. It is essential for the parents to understand the rights provided to them and to be well aware of the laws that support them.

In Asia, studies by researchers in China, India, Japan and the Republic of Korea have drawn attention to the problem of elder abuse, but no official action, in terms of policies or programme development, has followed so far.^[2]  In UK, if senior citizens needs someone to take of him/her, he/she is entitled to financial help for the same and this type of allowance is called Carer’s Allowance.^[3] All countries are taking action for senior citizens but the implementation of these laws created should be done correctly because not all elderly have the strength to go to tribunals or courts to fight for their right and they do not emotionally have the heart to file case against their own blood as taking care of them should come from heart and not an order.