During the first week of readings for the class, we read an article about the Chinese culture and traditional family obligations. In that culture, it is simply understood that once parents reach a certain age, or if one becomes ill or dies, the daughter in the family drops everything to care for the remaining and/or sick parent(s).
I know that in other cultures this is also prevalent. My grandmother has dementia and lives with a really sweet Romanian couple in Houston. This couple moved here several years ago, and were trained in caring for elderly patients and running homes for them. They have a special touch with older people, and have the ability to take care of them the way some others cannot. The woman's mother back in Romania became ill recently. She dropped everything to figure out a way to get her mother to the states, in order for her mom to come live in Houston with her. I was talking to her the last time I went to visit my grandmother about the situation. She said that in the Romanian culture, it is known that it is the daughter in the family's responsibility to care for sickly parents. And if there is more than one daughter in the family, the responsibility is shared between them, but not so among the sons.
I find it interesting that American culture is not very much like that. I mean yes, you find many elderly parents living with their sons and daughters' families. But if that was a staple of our culture, nursing homes and assisted living facilities wouldn't really prosper here...yet they are everywhere.
My mother passed away unexpectedly this past December (2009). And while my dad is by no means elderly, he was very dependent on my mom for things like taking care of the bills, his medicine, basic life functions, etc. (he's a bit of a scatter brain). My sister is in high school, and while she is very mature for her age, she is still very dependent on others. Right after her death, I felt like maybe I should take a semester or two off from graduate school and stay home to try to straighten things out. Our finances, paperwork, home, everything was in shambles because her and her alone took responsibility for those things. I thought that it was my responsibility as the oldest child (and to be honest compared to my dad the more stable adult) to take care of things.
But when I expressed my feelings/concerns with other family members, they simply stared in disbelief. "Drop out of school? Move back home? What?!" Most of this resistance came from my dad, who has always been my biggest supporter in terms of continuing my education. The thought simply never occurred to anyone that I should stay home to help take care of things. That doesn't happen all the time in the American culture. Or at least it doesn't happen in my family. I think the only person who might resent my decision is my sister. And that is only because she now has taken on a whole new level of responsibility at home. For example, she makes sure my dad has all his medicines, makes sure he doesn't leave the ice cream carton out on the counter before he goes to bed (this happens frequently), etc. We are still trying to find a good balance. I go back to Houston a lot to help out, and we are all trying to be very open and honest with each other in order to get through this.
But I wonder why family ties are so incredibly strong in some cultures, and not so much in others. Now that isn't to say that I wouldn't have stayed at home if my family wanted/needed me to. And that's also not to say that no one in the American culture cares about their parents. It just seems that other cultures expect grown children to take care of and welcome their parents in whatever way possible, and that's just the way it is, no matter the circumstances.
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