Star Beacon
May 13, 2009 02:50 pm
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If you are in the mood for a feel-good, give-you-a-lift type of column, to make you forget the economy and all of your troubles, this isn't it.
Unless you happen to be a mother.
Yeah, I know, Mother's Day was last weekend. But I can only get to one topic at a time. Consider this an early Father's Day column
So here is the bombshell: Given their choice, people would overwhelmingly choose to have their mother move in with them, over their father.
A study by Senior Helpers, which purports to be the nation's fastest growing provider of in-home care for seniors, found 70 percent of adult children (isn't that an oxymoron?) would overwhelming choose their mom over their dad to move in with them if elderly parents couldn't take care of themselves.
The study also found 67 percent said if mom wasn't able to move in, they would prefer mom live on her own with help, rather than in a nursing home or assisted living facility. The study also shows 80 percent of both men and women say they would pay out of their own pocket for their parents’ care.
This study was conducted online by Zoomerang.com, which polled 300 people. And yes, it was evenly divided between men and women, who were between ages 25 and 64. (I was wondering if the study was conducted mainly with women. Apparently not)
Other results:
Daughters were more likely than sons to have mom move in, 80 percent, compared to 65 percent for men.
At the same time, 30 percent didn't want mom moving in at all (that statistic a courtesy for all of you who are math-challenged, since I already reported 70 percent do.) Main reasons cited, mom would disrupt their lives, they did not have enough room and couldn't provide adequate care
People in the Northeast and Southeast were most agreeable to the move. People in the Midwest were least likely.
The survey finds 72 percent of females and 58 percent of men said they would move dad in if he could not care for himself.
Now some might argue I have a hard time taking care of myself now, but I am learning. Just recently I discovered that after my shower, the washcloth doesn't magically get clean. You can't leave it draped over the tub. I found from the bathtub, I could toss it into the clothes basket and wife Louise would take that and assorted towels and dirty clothing downstairs and put it in this giant contraption that sucks in water and somehow gets it all clean again. Yeah, who woulda thought?
I can remember a couple of decades ago when my kids were in elementary school. Louise was busy teaching math during the day and since I didn't go to work until later, I took on the role of room parent. You may have heard the term "room mother" instead.
Yes, Louise would make the cookies or cupcakes the night before a room party (usually held for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, birthday) but I was the one who delivered them, help clean up juice-box spills and smiled at the Jehovah Witness kid who couldn't participate.
I was the guy who wrote the series of clues and put them out for a treasure hunt and made up crossword puzzles that included the name of every student in the class using free software. (That was something new, because back then not everybody had a computer.)
At the end of the school year, at an assembly, it was announced room “mothers” were going to get a special reward for all of their work over the year. So Louise goes up to get the reward. I sat there.
It's like if Meryl Streep was deserving of a Best Actress award but her stand-in got up to receive it!
See how society emphasizes Mom over Dad?
My kids learned important lessons from me. They wouldn't know near the Rolling Stones lyrics if not for me. They would never know the music that meant the next scene on “The Beverly Hillbillies” would take place at the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills if not for my gentle instruction. Special life lessons may never have been learned if not for me, like, when you see a short person with gray hair in front of you on the road, get around him / her fast or you may be stuck driving at 25 in a 45 zone for miles.
Mom isn't going to tell you that!
And one other observation about this survey: It is just plain cruel.
Do you mean to say when wife and I get old and gray in 50 or 60 years, when we no longer know “Satisfaction” from “Sympathy for the Devil” and can’t defrag our own computer hard drives, our kids will say, "Mom, come live with us. Dad, you are on your own."
Next time, they can create their own damn crossword puzzle.
p
Last week I suggested with Consumer Report’s No. 1 supermarket chain a half-hour drive from Ashtabula County, we try to get Wegman’s to locate stores here, possibly the Gateway Plaza in Conneaut and the old Tops Market in Ashtabula.
Alas, it appears Wegman’s has an agreement with the Meijer chain not to locate in Ohio, even though we have no Meijer stores in this area.
The person informing me of this said Conneaut’s best bet for replacing the long-gone Giant Eagle store out by the interstate is with Giant Eagle.
“I would also keep in mind that the Conneaut store was independently owned, not corporate, so it would not be far-fetched to convince corporate to locate in Conneaut,” he wrote.
He also suggested getting Kroger to return here, since it has a distribution center in Delaware, Ohio. Kroger was the original grocery tenet when the plaza was built a few decades ago. Also, Kroger has remodeled many stores with the same older format to meet new standards.
So there you go, Giant Eagle or Kroger.
Want to put a bug in their ears?
Giant Eagle corporate headquarters is at 101 Kappa Dr., Pittsburgh 15238-2833. Phone 412-963-6200. Contact Kroger at Kroger Co., Customer Relations, 1014 Vine St., Cincinnati, 45202-1100. Corporate switchboard is at 513-762-4000.
Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com.
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ROBERT LEBZELTER column