“…there is one thing I have noticed among the elderly people. The ones that never had children were the saddest and loneliest people by far.”

Suze, I wonder how real this correlation is.

It could be that if you know a person in a retirement doesn’t have kids or visitors, then you as a worker automatically, probably subconsciously, feel sorry for them and hence see them as being sad and lonely compared to others.

Jeepers CJ, you’ve had a few accidents. No wonder you’ve only got one arm and one leg!

Very droll, Ludwig. Boom boom :)

No Ludwig, it wasn't an observation, it was a fact. These people (the ones who could communicate well) told me this, time and time again.

I have been nursing for 30 years.
Do you have any idea how many elderly people I have spoken to and cared for over that time? More than I care to remember.

Unfortunately, elderly, lonely childless people are a fact of life.

So what you are implying Suze, is that people have kids to satisfy
their own self interest. I happen to agree with you, its true.

With CJ we have a different problem. It sounds like the bit of
dna that is associated with understanding contraception and how
it works, is missing :)

Examinator
Parents are encouraged to be hands-off these days. Parenting does not seem to be valued for the pivotal role it plays in regulating society. It has morphed into something people juggle on the periphery of their job.

When the Federal Government rolled out its "Depression Prevention" program for infants, a major source of stress was termed "attachment disruption" which appears to be blamed on everything else but the fact that very young children are offloaded into daycare so early in their development. My theory is that attachment disruption works both ways - parents learn quickly to understand that modern consumer society dictates that they are expected to hand over the rearing of their offspring to outside sources.

If we learn as a society to extol the virtues and value of hands-on parenting, we may see more parents take pride in that role.