BANG! BANG! BANG!
Bobby, turn that down.
Bobby, did you hear me? I said turn it down.
But it's just at the best part.
Turn it down.
Is that all right?
I said down, not off. It doesn't have to be so loud.
You know your grandfather just can't stand noise.
But it's shooting in Indians.
You said yourself, if I didn't turn it on yesterday, I could watch it today.
So today you're sick again. Can't I never...
Shh!
Can't I never watch cowboy pictures no more because grandpa's living here.
What do you have to come here for anyway?
Bobby, don't you love your grandfather?
I love him all right, but it's no fun here anymore.
Bobby's right.
Jim, I didn't hear you come in.
That's because I came in on tiptoes.
This whole house is on tiptoes.
But, Jim, it's just that he's not well right now.
I know he's not well.
But this isn't his home, it's Bobby's home.
And it's Dorothy's home.
And because he's sick, they can't live here anymore.
Jim, please don't. He'll hear you.
Alice, this is no good.
We're losing our kids because an old man has come to live with us.
But he's my father.
He's an old man.
It's all right, Dad. I won't make any noise.
It isn't all right. I want you to make noise.
Now, what's growing up without making noise?
Alice, this is a house for our children, not for an old man.
Jim, please, not so loud. He can't stand it when it's loud.
And he can't stand the radio when it's loud, and he
can't stand TV when it's loud.
They can't stand laughter when it's loud, so our kids can't play here.
But he's sick right now, Jimmy. He's always going to be sick at least.
He's always going to be old. Don't you understand?
And he can't stay.
He's my father. What do you want me to do?
Throw him out on the street?
No, I don't want you to throw him out on the street.
Just find him a place to live.
The old age is memories enclosed in four walls, where today has little
nourishment and meager appetite.
Old age is sitting on a bench and watching life hurrying by.
Old age is a lonely meal behind a plate glass window,
a window that looks out upon a busy world that somehow never
took old age into its reckoning.
It made the steps too steep, the curves too high,
the pace too swift.
And it separates usefulness from old age
by the hard, sharp line of a single day.
There are two basic needs that time puts upon us, something to do
and a place to live.
Some are lucky. Through the continuing of their life's work, they cross
the line into old age with scarcely an interruption.
For them, the threat of life continues unbroken to its end.
But they are the few and the fortunate.
Most by far pass over the threshold into old age, into a new world of which they
are only dimly aware.
Uncertain and unprepared, they are confronted as though for the first
time by life's demands.
What will you do here? Where will you live?
How will you spend your days?
Imperative questions demanding answers, and the answers are hard to come by.
But there may be within the community those with training and
experience who can point the way.
So we thought we'd ask you. This question must come up in lots
of families, so maybe you can help us.
Jim, can I ask my question?
Sure, darling, go ahead.
Is my husband right when he says that having my father live with us is
unfair to our children?
And to him?
You're asking me to be the judge in this case?
You might call it that.
We talked it over and agreed that if you seem to...
To know my business?
Yes. I guess you might call it that. Then we'd let you decide.
Well, I'm glad you feel that way, but remember, I'm not here as a judge.
I can tell you what our experience has been, what some of the solutions are.
But then you'll have to make up your own lives.
All right. But there's something I must know.
What's best for my children and my husband?
And what's best for my father?
No, Jim.
What's best for my father?
A question repeated a thousand times over in many rooms like
this by many people.
Sons and daughters who would be good children and would be good parents, and who
can find no single path to travel where they can be both.
What's best for my father?
What are the needs of a proud human being who comes to live in his children's
home, disarranging the orderly and established pattern of family life?
What about a room?
A place to live?
When there is no room to spare?
What about food?
The preparation required by a special diet when appetites
wait on the needs of the aged?
What about special care?
With nursing, which you can't afford to pay for, and time you can't afford to
give except at the expense of home and family?
What about communication between the young and the old?
They live together but have no common language.
For no effort has been made to bridge the chasm between the world of the aged
and the world of the young.
Rather is this distance widened when there is no work, no responsibilities, no
reason for life, for a human being whose years have been filled with work and
responsibility and purpose.
What can be done for this man?
Where can he find the answer to his needs?
I wish there was some simple answer I could give you.
There isn't.
People don't come in categories, least of all old people.
Have you talked about this with your father?
No, we haven't talked about it too much since
Mother died. He hasn't been too well.
We haven't talked about it with him at all.
Well, Alice said could we take him in with us for a
while till we could work something out?
That was about eight months ago, you said?
That's right.
And it's been getting worse every day.
Not for father?
No, it's fine for him.
Why shouldn't it be?
She waits on him hand and foot.
Fine for him.
A respected and loved parent, a worker who lived a fruitful and useful life, and
now finds that life has no further use for him.
In a world where so much is being done, his hands have nothing to do.
Sorry, old man, this is not for you.
And he's alone in a crowded street.
And two, he's alone at home with only ghosts and
memories as dependable companions.
But memories are poor company.
And even television needs to be shared.
So to those he loves, he is the problem.
And for both, there is guilt as well as pain.
Right now, he's not well.
He needs help. That's what I...
That fouls up the whole works.
He needs something we can't afford to give him.
It's just not fair.
To you or to the children.
Or to dad.
What else can we do?
Well, sometimes, given time and goodwill, these situations
can be worked out within the family.
When they can't, the old person is just as unhappy about it as his children.
In your case, your father's illness may make living with
you unwise for everybody.
That is, if it's going to cause too much friction.
If it entails sacrifice, unnecessary perhaps, or unreasonable...
It does that too.
Jim, let her.
That's all right. I know how you both feel.
Is there any other member of your family someplace
where there aren't growing children, perhaps?
No. I have a younger sister, but she couldn't...
Her husband's in the Navy. A career man.
Any others? Maybe you have some cousins who might...
Why should they?
You could contribute to the expenses of the household. Sometimes...
Stop it! I would hate that!
Look, there's one thing we've been shying away
from, and I think we ought to bring it out into the open.
I can't stand it!
Alice, honey, this is something we have to fake.
No!
But maybe it isn't as bad as you think.
You're talking about a place for your father to live.
I'm talking about a home. An old people's home.
It's easy for you to talk, that he's my father!
Well, it isn't the prison that he's going to.
Are these places really so bad?
The picture's a great deal brighter than it used to be, but...
Of course, it isn't like living in one's own home.
In most cases, an enlightened community can provide the kind of housing
that enables them to live independently.
Oh, it's true that some older people need the protected environment and trained
care that a home for the aged can give.
Here they often start a new and satisfying life and even establish
healthier relations with their children.
There are some very good homes that could provide a happy solution
for your father and your family.
He might be the first to agree.
Aren't these homes within our means?
Oh, yes. They're average-income homes.
Of course, nowadays that means social security, pension funds, insurance, and
also some community support.
But there are very few good homes, and they all have long waiting lists.
Why? What stops them? Why can't there be enough to go around?
Public indifference, for one thing.
Far too many people still seem unaware of the fact that there is
such a thing as old age.
Community attitudes for another.
Attitudes of people like you, Mrs. Allen, who shrink from what is probably the
best solution for some older people, those who for one reason or another need
help, particularly trained help.
The very thought is, my father wouldn't go, and I couldn't make him.
What kind of a place could it be?
What kind of place could it be?
A place that could make the difference between these eyes and these.
Between proximity and companionship.
Between useless, withering hands and hands that are both useful and needed.
What magic place is this that can take the worn and faded fabric of a life and
weave for it a strong new cloth with threads of belonging and being useful?
What kind of place could it be?
Here, within the confines of this pleasant, well-appearing house, are the
ingredients that import to those who live here a sense of
pride in where they live.
And two, its location close to a good community enables them to come and go as
they please with easy communication among friends and family.
The pleasant, airy rooms are clean and comfortably appointed with the small but
essential ingredients of well-being.
A bright world to look out on. A radio or television set.
Linens that are fresh and clean.
Ample drawer space.
And the pleasure of a good bed.
There are single rooms for those to whom privacy equates with personal dignity,
and double rooms for married couples or where two in a room is desirable.
They're at home here, living out their lives together with the special types of
care they need for their physical well-being.
Themselves unburdened and burdening no one.
Old age may be memories enclosed in four walls, or it may be a zest for living
this day with eyes fixed eagerly and confidently on all the days that lie ahead.
In such a place, little things too are important.
Things like easy access to the telephone, unsupervised use of their own
spending money, and the assurance that mail is received and forwarded unopened.
They bolster the spirit and ease the hour by hour round of everyday living.
How comforting to know that special diet problems are in good hands, and that one
is relieved of the worry and planning and preparation for them.
And that eating is no longer a lonely hour, but a time of pleasant association,
dining with friends and companions.
That there are skills and facilities here to care for the
infirmities that ages ere to.
That 90-year-old arms are still worth fussing over, with a friendly and competent
person interested and happy to do the job.
Ills of the body are an expectable part of growing old, but in such a place as
this, they are not allowed to infect the spirit and the mind as well.
There are dozens of small aids for slowing steps, for sagging strength, that say
more tellingly than words, you are important too.
This is a world for the old as well as for the young.
Here in the living room, one can proudly welcome one's family. Gone are the
feelings of guilt and pain because of dependence and lack of self-reliance.
Now there's pride in one's children and grandchildren. There's respect
and love emerging from a new and better relationship.
With age two come increasing needs of the spirit, so within this home there is a
place for prayer and meditation.
So do we begin to answer the needs that time puts upon us. A place to live
and something to do.
Nothing so burdensome that it puts unfair demands on the sometimes limited
capacities of age, but rather a chance to work in a group and enjoy the
companionship that comes from working and living together.
A useful absorbing occupation that is carried on at one's own pace. Creative
things, useful things.
Achievement is no less engrossing at eighty than it is at eight.
In such a place recreation is a part of life, not merely a substitute for it as
it is so often among older people.
Playtime assumes its normal patterns across a chessboard, on a card table,
or over a player's shoulder.
And though the light fantastic may have lost some of its lightness, it has lost
none of the gaiety, exhilaration, and sense of well-being that it brings with it.
Small wonder that personal appearance has its proud place here, and is no less
meaningful when hair is silver than when it was gold.
In such a place as this, there is trained and integrated personnel, professions
and skill and experience, staff or consultant, each with but one overriding
concern, the well-being of each resident in the home.
And to those residents, here is both evidence and assurance that old age can be a
valued period of life, rich in its possibilities, worthy of society's best
care, protection and planning.
The grounds of the home are almost beyond appraising, so essential are they to
one's peace of mind, the sense of a bond with the living world.
Even to walk out on your own grounds for an hour of sun is the difference between
being a part of life and being walled in awaiting death.
A piece of earth can add infinite dimension.
Important too is that within this thriving community of old people, they have
often a governing body of their own elective representatives, truly a body of
elder statesmen and stateswomen, proud of their
position, worthy of their responsibilities.
So does the face of age reflect the world we make for it. So can we see in their
eyes the love and security, the occupation and companionship that are to
be found in a home like this.
There are many old people here, varied in their needs, different from one
another as all people are different.
Some are old in years only, some are failing in mind and body,
but it may be that here in the course of years are you and I.
It takes ingredients of many kinds to make a home for us all.
It takes the kind of planning and preparation that's possible only in a community
that's conditioned to it, and whose old people are conditioned to
accept it when the need arises.
You don't acquire that kind of conditioning overnight, just because the calendar
says you've reached 65 or some other arbitrary age. You have to start
working on it many years before.
Yes, I can see that. In other words, Dad should have thought about this and
done something about it when he was our age.
That's right. He should have. And now, may I ask you a question?
What are you doing about it?
What are we doing about it? How can we prepare for all our years?
For our children, there is the assurance of a good start, of a score of years of
happy, constructive youth, all given them by a society well aware of
the importance of such a beginning.
But there is more. There is another need. There is the promise of a rich and
fruitful old age, the knowledge that the last 20 years, the gift of modern
medicine and science, need not be spent alone, unwanted, useless.
Indeed, the span of life is poorly built if it does not
soundly reach to the far shore.
[...]