14. SENDING OLD PEOPLE TO RETIREMENT HOMES. (Six different compositions - BACHILLERATO 1)

           Retirement homes are a good thing as when someone in your family is old you can send him to a retirement home. But, it is difficult to do it.

           On the one hand, when your parents or grandparents are old, it is difficult to stay with them at home and look after them all the time. They are old and they need cares, but you can’t constantly be at home with them as people need to work or go out. When this happens, retirement homes are a good place where old people can be happy speaking with other people, and of course, there are workers who look after them.

           On the other hand, it is hard to send people whom you love to retirement homes. You can’t see them as much as you used to before sending them to those places. In addition, I think that when old people go to those places, it remembers them that they are old, and in some way that is positive because they have had a long life but it is sad to remember that you are going to stay in the same place until you die without the company of your relatives.

           In conclusion, retirement homes are good places for old people, where others look after them. However, it is sad to say goodbye to people you love and know that they are going to stay in the same place forever.

                                                                                      

                                                                                                    By S.E.

Sending old people to 'retirement homes' is always a tough decision to make, but sometimes there is no other way to solve a complicated familiar situation.

Although some people send their parents to 'retirement homes' because they don't want to take care of them, there are other people, as only children, that can't take care of them because of reasons like work, money, children...

It is really sad to see your own parents, those who gave this life for you and those who love you even more than themselves, in a retirement home with people they don't know or love.

So, I hope my parents won't have to be sent to retirement homes as I love them so much and I am going to take care of them so they don't have to spend the last years of their live in a strange place with strange people, but with the ones they love.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      By A.D.

When you are old, you are no longer able to do all the activities that you used to do. Old people usually have some kind of disease –heart problems, breathing problems, disability, and cholesterol- so one of the best things you can do is to take them to a place where they will be taken care of. Therefore, ‘retirement homes’ are a good spot for them.

In these installations there are a lot of activities for elderly people. They can learn new things or practise some exercise. On the one hand, these places are convenient for them since this way they won’t feel totally alone –as in their houses they can feel lonely. On the other hand, this is not a place to get rid of old people since they usually need help. When you send your mother or your grandfather there it’s because you will visit her or him regularly.

My mum has usually told me that the day when she won’t be able to do anything on her own; I should send her to one of these places. She doesn’t want to be a nuisance or to take my time away while I can be doing another thing –just like her mother did to her. In my opinion, ‘retirement homes’ are a good option when all your ideas are over.

                                                                                           By A.R

I would never send anyone to a retirement home. I would look for other alternatives, such as paying someone to look after the person at home. 

I hate retirement homes. This is because once, a few years ago, I went to one and I had a bad experience. I went with my mother and my grandmother to visit a cousin of my grandmother and when we walked through the door, an old man told me he wanted to leave and before I let him out a nurse told me that he couldn’t get out, but the old man grabbed the door because he wanted to escape, and then another man,   who also wanted to go out, came and I didn’t know what to do, so my mother came and closed the door.

Inside the retirement home, there were a lot of elderly people in a room sitting in chairs doing nothing and they all seemed very sad. One had even peed in the middle of the room and nobody did anything.

Everything seemed very sad, but otherwise it is a good place to go if you are a dependent elderly person and nobody can look after you.

                                           By Anonymous 

When we grow older and we finally become an old man or woman, we expect a sweet future full of good memories, surrounded by our children and grandchildren and telling them all our youth stories. Well, that’s the idyllic situation, but in fact many old people are sent to a retirement house and left there like objects, without having more contact with their relatives.

In my opinion, children mustn’t “abandon” their parents just because they are really old, and when taking care of them supposes a hard obligation. There are many cases of sons and daughters who only visit their parents at Christmas time, maybe feeling slightly guilty, and it is a fact that some people never call on their parents once they start living in an old people’s home. Instead of doing this, they should appreciate them for all the things they have done for them. Although they have less life left to live, they need support and company in this period, and a simple thing that would make them happy is a visit of their family.

Retirement homes don’t have to be bad or inconvenient for the elderly. Actually, they can be an opportunity to meet new people and do activities that entertain them. The problem appears when these places become areas to leave old people forever. Visiting your parents at least once a week is not really hard and will keep the relationship parents-children alive.

                                                                            By M.S

One month ago, my greatgrandfather got mad at my grandmother (his daughter) as she had sent him to a retirement home for one month. Why did he get angry? Did my grandmother disrespect her experienced father, who is in fact 103 years old, by doing this?

In my opinion, my grandmother did well, as she is rather old, and she cannot keep up with the rhythm of life that looking after a 103 year old conveys. I mean, she is around seventy years old, she has not got either the strength or the patience that are required in order to help her father. She even had to have her house cleaned by a cleaning company once as she had not got the time to do it.

What I am trying to explain with this example is that we have to understand someone who was taking care of an old person before criticising him for having sent a relative to a retirement home. After all, these places allow elderly people to make new friends and meet new people that they would never have met if they had not gone there.

I believe that society should stop considering retirement homes a negative thing, as they are a really useful tool for old people's relatives to enjoy their own lives.

                                                      By SPA