Concerning your late husband and his lack of proper hospital care. You have given a nightmare description of the dreadful and disrespectful service offered by the NHS. Did the hospital staff expect you to wash him, change his bed, feed him, etc. ? I don't agree with you that parents should expect their sons or daughters to care for them full time if they are frail and ill. Regarding Alzheimers, I realize you were joking, but there is more to this disease than just being forgetful
Yes I know alzheimers has much much more to it and I was joking as you say. My late husband`s Aunt died from it and she had been his surrogate Mum after his own Mother died when he was just 5 and so we saw first hand what a cruel disease it is.
I don`t think parents expect their kids to look after them when sick or frail but back in my childhood days several generations of the same family would live within spitting distance of each other. They would look after each others kids, help each other with money, food, DIY or whatever. Most working class families had people working shifts , too many children and too small a house.
Grans, Grandads, Uncles and Aunts all played a big part. Young married couples often lived with their parents or in laws until they could afford their own home, some couples stayed with their parents or in laws forever and would take over renting the house when parents passed away because being part of an extended family was the norm. If someone fell seriously ill or was dying then whole families would share the care and take pride in it plus make sure they got a "good send off" when the time came.
My own Mum had 4 kids, 2 part time jobs and didn`t drive, or own a car or have money to spare but every week she cleaned my Grandad`s house, did his washing , baked him a basket full of pies and cakes, paid his "tick" bill at the corner shop and back in those days it was just how it was.
I was born not that many years after the end of the War, the creation of the NHS and sadly the destruction of many communities. My Mother and many other women before her couldn`t afford to pay for a Doctor`s visit or to buy every single item needed to care for someone who was maybe ill or bed bound, nothing was free, no NHS. They didn`t have disposable bedding or endless dressings and they didn`t have medical knowledge. Their parents were scared of hospitals, many of them had been born at the end of the 19th century, my own grandad was born in 1887 and they envisaged workhouses not somewhere to be cared for.
Many women had babies delivered by neighbours or female relations, in my parents early married days, they had no bathrooms, outside toilets, no gizmos or gadgets to make life easier. Washing took hours to do and often days to dry, you may have had nothing but you were still expected to have standards, clean steps, clean windows and curtains etc and you never turned your back on any family member in need. It was how it was and I can remember being cared for by neighbours, relatives, friends Mums when I was little and my Mum had to work or had to take my very sickly younger brother to appointments or into hospital.
All of what I`ve written is still how it is in other Countries and amongst other populations, poor housing, large families, no free health care, sheer hard slog, no money and so on. India, Africa, China to name but a few. You are born, you live if you`re lucky enough and you die amongst the people you`ve looked after and who now look after you.