STRANGE PRIORITIES

     I paid a visit to a friend, an old lady who recently turned 95 years old.  She said to me, "Connie, I never thought I would end up like this."  She lives in a nursing home.  I'm Connie Palmer and I have know Miss Lydia since I was a little girl.  She and her husband never had children and since I found out she was in a facility, I make it my business to check on her.

     When she first went to the nursing home, it was clean, comfortable and full of seemingly caring and competent people.  I later learned that new management took over.  They began to cut corners on patient care.  They laid off aides and nurses and removed some of the management staff.  In other words, they made big changes for the worse.

     The makeup of the aide staff seemed to change every week.  The low morale meant that they constantly argued among themselves, often in the halls where the patients could hear.  The food was inedible.  There were shortages of gowns and towels, and medical equipment was so inadequate that patients who needed special help waited for hours.

     On that particular day, I found Miss Lydia in her room crying softly as she sat in her wheel chair.  By this time, she had grown feeble and requirement assistance for most of her needs.  The next day, I made new arrangements for Miss Lydia.

     I know you're asking what this has got to do with me, the reader.  Just this:  the cost-cutting decisions of that facility were made on a profit basis.  I directed my anger from the aides to administrators and government regulators.  The aides were expected to give basic care--duties that were often distasteful to them and demeaning to the patients--for paltry pay.  No wonder staff turn-over  was mind boggling.

     We say we respect our elders, just as we give lip service to the preciousness of our children.  Yet, workers who care for both children and the elderly are sadly underpaid.

     I enjoy a good burger as much as the next person, but if i were going to fight for anyone's pay to be raised, it wouldn't be for fast food workers, but for those workers who take care of our most precious resources, our children and the elderly.  Let's get our priorities straight.

TWO CINDERELLA STORIES

     Remember the fairytale story of Cinderella?  The poor girl was forced to do all the work in her home while her ugly step sisters went with their mother to the ball in hopes of being chosen as a wife for the prince?

     Fast forward to the year 2014 where the story of a real-life Cinderella unfolds.  A Welsh woman is suing her seventy-five year old parents for a portion of their £7million estate.  She claims, sort of like Cinderella before her that for twenty-five years she worked extremely long hours on the family dairy farm while her siblings went out and enjoyed themselves dancing. 

     According to news reports, the forty-five year old woman claims that as a teen she had to stay and work on the farm while her two sisters went to the Young Farmers’ Club dances.   She says that over the years she says she was told by her parents “You’ll have the whole dam lot one day.”  

     Her parents counter that their daughter received room and board and a fair wage.  They also said they had put her through agriculture school because she said she wanted to stay on the farm.

     Honestly, it would be hard to walk away from any portion of £7milion. (I don’t know what that is in dollars but it sounds like a lot.) But, I wonder, is the estate really “family” money?  Doesn’t it belong to the parents to give, loose, throw away as they choose?  Could the daughter have (gasp) saved up for her own small farm instead of waiting on the parents to die?  On second thought, I guess not since she’s suing for her portion now.

     Meanwhile, on “this side of the pond” we have the New Jersey Cinderella who doesn’t have to contend with ugly step sisters.  Instead she sounds like she could be one, stomping her feet and demanding she be supported in the manner in which she wants to be accustom.  At the legal age of 18 years old, she wants to set her own rules just as an adult can, but be supported as a minor. She feels she is owed the money for her room and board, weekly child support of, and her remaining high school tuition.  Oh, and of course, college tuition. 

     My question is when are our children going to learn self-reliance, respect for their parents, and pride in their own accomplishments?  To me, the obvious answer is--when we teach them.

     At the close of the New Jersey Cinderella case, the judge asked, “Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?”  

     Well, do we?

This is Bea Bell, signing off.

BRAIN FART: HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS, KICK THE KIDS OUTSIDE

I have to admit that I, Fanny Collier, was practicing the yearly spending ritual that we call Christmas shopping when I ran across a retro toy shop.  They were selling toys that were popular when my son was a child and even some toys from when I was little.

There were jacks, jump ropes, Tonka trucks, and even a Lionel train set.  It all made me long for the “good old days”.  Now that’s something I seldom do because I know that time marches on and those days were old but not often as good as we remember.

Seeing those toys got me thinking about a conversation I had with my grandson when he was younger.  I was telling him about games that I played growing up.  There were games like jump rope and kick the can and hand-clapping games like Mary Mac.  As I was recalling how much fun I used to have, my grandson shot down my moment of nostalgia by asking me if we were too poor to afford toys.   Was he serious?  Taking a deep breath, I explained that we did have some toys but we didn’t need a bunch of commercial toys because we played games that were fun and imaginative.   When he continued to stare at me blankly, I just told him to go outside and play.

Then it hit me! Do parents make their kids go outside to play anymore?  There were not many days, especially during the summer, that our parents didn’t send us outside.  They really didn’t care rather we wanted to go out; we were not allowed to sit in the house all day unless we were doing some chore.  The fact that we kids were given jobs to do around the house was enough to inspire going outside to play.

When you think about it, games haven’t really changed that much.  I used to complain that the games today are more violent, but in reality the ones that children played in the past, like cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians were violent as well.  The only difference was that the blood and gore was implied and not visible like they are in today’s video games.  Back then everyone wanted to be the good guys.

Of course much tamer games like hopscotch, jacks, tag, hide-and-seek, etc.  may be considered by young people today  as “lame” or “stupid”,  but such games provided exercise and fun, fresh air and sunshine, to say nothing of developing coordination. 

Even if the games of the past are lame, stupid or just old-fashioned, they’re better for our kids than video games.  At best the latter develops good thumb coordination and at worst, they teach stealing and killing skills.  Either way the child is being programmed instead of learning to think.

As you shop for toys this Christmas, you can spend a fortune for games for your kids that promote cave-man-like qualities, but I’d like to suggest that you kick your kids outdoors to play—especially if it’s cold and snowing.  I’ll bet they’ll use their imaginations then.  So muse on that!