It’s advice that not everyone seems to heed: honour your mother and your father.
This is advice that has been passed down throughout most of recorded history, and still remains vital today — not just with respect to one’s own mother and father, but with respect to all of the elders in our community.
Throughout the ages, the elders in a community have always maintained essential roles. They have been the lawmakers, the educators and the arbiters of justice. They have been the caregivers, the seed savers and community leaders.
Even today, our elders maintain positions of authority and power within our communities. If you look at any of the municipal, provincial or federal governments, they are – with some obvious exceptions – composed of more aged, learned members of our society.
If you look at the judges who preside over Alberta’s courtrooms, you will notice that a great many of them fall within older age groups.
This is, perhaps, with good reason. With age often comes wisdom, and a sober wisdom is often required when making decisions that will affect the course of a town, a province, a country, or the justice system.
We should all be shocked, appalled and indignant, then that there is even the need for such a thing as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.
Yet, there it is. In our own community, even.
To think that within a span of a few years, somebody whose wisdom was guiding social policy and important decision-making can go from top of the heap to swept under the rug. Some, in fact, don’t just get swept under the rug, but are neglected or taken advantage of. For shame.
In the twilight of our lives, we often require a certain degree of care that we are no longer able to provide for ourselves, and that’s precisely why age-old axioms like “honour your mother and your father” have stayed with us, through countless generations and cultural shifts.
As a society, it is crucial that we protect the most vulnerable, including the elderly who are no longer able to take care of themselves. The idea that anyone would take advantage of someone in such a vulnerable position is unconscionable. We are fortunate to have advocacy groups in our community that address this issue, and chances are we could all do more to protect this most vulnerable group in our community.
