A news item in a print daily of Tuesday April 12, 2011, headlined “Granny, 75, hangs self” relates that the grandmother had decided to hang herself because she could not afford to pay her grocery bills.
Reportedly, the grandmother had been living in the upper flat of her own home while her son, daughter-in-law and their children occupied the lower apartment – rent-free.
She had been eking out an existence off the small Government pension, which had apparently not been enough to pay her bills and provide her with sustenance for survival. After paying her utilities, she was not left with sufficient funds to purchase enough groceries on which to subsist; so hunger drove her to take credit from the grocery store, which of course left her in debt that she could not repay. Caught in a vicious cycle of financial straits from which she could not extricate herself, in desperation she ended her life.
Needing to go out, the daughter-in-law went to ask her to babysit and discovered the old woman’s body hanging from the rafter of her bedroom.
Only a mother knows of the travails she endures to nurture and bring up a child to adulthood, especially a single mother with no support system. And only a mother whose child abandons her in her hour of need knows the agony this mother must have experienced when she had to go hungry, even as she was providing shelter – and probably paying utility bills and property taxes for family members who did not care that she was literally starving.
Water and electricity bills had been subsidised for pensioners by the previous Administration; but these were only sufficient for a single person, but property taxes are/were not subsidised, so her cumulative financial problems became insurmountable – to the extent that she saw no way out but to take her own life.
With rare exceptions to the general norm, this current generation seems to think that mothers are disposable commodities, only for use as maids and convenient babysitters, without being accorded any status of respect or care as an elderly family member.
Their treatment of mothers is generally dictated by their spouses, who would more than likely favour their own relatives.
What is so hard about providing a meal for an elderly parent? It is absolutely reprehensible for a child to sit down at a laden table without considering that the mother who nurtured him in her womb, fed him from her breast, then from her plate; who provided the wherewithal for his every need until he could fend for himself, is going hungry – to the extent where she decides that death is preferable to slow starvation, and loss of dignity through having to credit basic foodstuff in desperation, in full knowledge that she most likely would not be able to pay for the items because her pension, which was her only source of income, was earmarked for utilities.
The society, the community, and worse of all, family members have all failed this woman and are indirectly responsible for her untimely death. No one should go hungry and become so hopeless that they take their own lives from desperation and inability to provide for themselves the most basic sustenance for survival.
Religious leaders should be pivots around which communities circumnavigate their social dynamics – and elders, single parents and children should be under community watch at all times.
It is the way of all our cultures; but, sadly, we all seem to have lost our way, as a nation of diverse cultures that once held dear the elders of our society.
The Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and the Political Declaration adopted at the Second World Assembly on Ageing in April 2002 mark a turning point in how the world addresses the key challenge of “building a society for all ages”.
The Madrid Plan of Action offers a bold new agenda for handling the issue of ageing in the 21st-century. It focuses on three priority areas: older persons and development; advancing health and well-being into old age; and ensuring enabling and supportive environments. It is a resource for policymaking, suggesting ways for governments, non-governmental organisations and other actors to reorient the ways in which their societies perceive, interact with and care for their older citizens. And it represents the first time governments agreed to link questions of ageing to other frameworks for social and economic development and human rights, most notably those agreed at the United Nations conferences and summits of the past decade.
