If old people no longer physically, mentally, financially able to look after themselves, younger family should be legally responsible for supporting them.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
When old people are not able to take care of themselves physically, financially, and mentally, it should be legitimized that younger family members take the responsibility of looking after them. I totally agree with this view as there are several benefits it can bring to individuals – family duty and strengthening the bonds between the families – are more significant.
There are host of reasons why it might be a problem to legitimate taking care of old people. The chief among them is overburdening for young people. Some people work day and night to satisfy the basic needs of their children and when there is one more member who needs extra attention with medicines and food, it might affect the head of the family, making them to work more, leading to anxiety and stress due to not being able to earn enough money for everyone.
Additionally, it must be the responsibility of government to take care of them as they have worked considerable amount of time before, which means the government will be able to pay them pension. As a result, it will be unfair for young generation making them look after elderly people as they already have enough money that can cover their basic costs.
However, it is moral responsibility of young people to support elderly because they have been supporting their children before, teaching them everything they need and also working for them, so they could grow up being a useful individual for society. For example, in Uzbekistan, when people retire and get old enough to feed themselves, their children always cover their costs and satisfy their needs thanks for the cultural and religious lessons they have learnt.
Another benefit that can further reinforce the former is strengthening family bonding. When young people are showing respect towards their parents and provide assistance for them, it teaches a great lesson for younger generation, improving the family bonding and become kinder towards people who are older than them. As a result, it will help families to spend more time together in peace and fun being an example for other people.
In conclusion, although there are several problems supervising old people when they are unable to look after themselves, I believe it is morally unfair to just ignore them and leave it to the authorities.
