The Other Home..

-Afsana Yamin

‘Parents’,the life givers or we can say the seen God on Earth, who after being parents spend their whole life for the well being of their children. They go to any extent to make their children happy. Parents send their children abroad for higher education. But, why these children after coming back consider their parents to b a burden? Why these educated children cannot pay back their parents? Why these parents’ ultimate destination has to be an old age home? Why? These questions seem cruel, right? I know it is. Whenever we hear about an old age home all these questions come to our mind. But these questions sometimes have another story.
For generations, India has a prevailing tradition of joint family. Everyone used to live together in the same house. In such case it becomes easier to look after the aged people. but today joint family system is slowly fading away and now in this competitive world when both the men and women are working, and sometimes need to stay away from their hometown, or go abroad for job purpose.And in many cases the aged parents themselves deny to walk along with their children because of their attachment to their hometown. As a result, most of the times the old people are left alone at home.
In such cases neither the children are to be blamed not the parents.In situation like this An Old AgeHome is a good initiative. Most of the time it is seen that institutions like old age home is being criticized .But what about those people who have no children at all .? These people too need someone at their old days, right? Someone to look after them, take care of them. For these people an old age home is a necessity.
But what is pathetic is that in our society there are some people who forcefully send their parents to an old age home just because they don’t want to take care of their aged parents or they don’t want their parents anymore. People become so heartless nowadays that they can ditch their parents, ignore them and even throw them out of their house .We can see so many cases like this going on in and around our society.This is really heart breaking .Nowadays people are becoming more educated in one hand on the other hand they are losing all the moral values. I think incidents like this needs to be stopped, people should understand that parents are the responsibility and not a burden to them.But only for these people why an institutions like old age home is been criticized. Yes it’s true that institution like old age home should not become a trend to follow but in some cases these old age homes are a ray of hope for many. Not every aged person staying in an old age home is forcefully send by the children ,in fact some themselves choose to live in an old age home rather than being alone at home all the time.
Old age or the final stage of human life is when people crave only for love, care and attention. But in present time, due to various reasons, like children go abroad, children are working day and night, having less time to spend with their aged parents. Most of the time old people are seen lonely at home deprived of all the love, care and attention they deserve. And to provide love, care and attention an old age home is not a topic to be criticized. In fact, it is a great initiative for those in need. It is a good step to spread love….