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Originally Posted by dogsbody70
It seems to point out that these people are hard up Maybe? and have to steal food in order to survive.
I wonder if it is no longer the NORM for families to stick together and care for their elderly parents?
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I think this is more to do with not wanting to have their families KNOW that they`re hard up. Elderly parents don`t want their successful children to know that they`re having trouble getting by - it is almost guaranteed to make the child come to care for them. When parents live far from their children, it can be a huge issue. Either the children move home, or the parents move in with the children. In the first case, the child has to give up their life and career... And in the second, the family home is lost.
No one wants to be a burden on their children, so instead of telling them that they`re not getting by - Or applying for support (which would likely inform the children) - they try to make it without help.
At the very least they try to put up a facade of being just fine.
There was a documentary on here a couple years back about the same subject. It was found that 75% of the cases of shoplifting by the elderly were related to family visiting. Old men would steal prime pieces of meat to treat visiting grandchildren, old women would steal expensive fish and ready-made deli type items for the family table... There was relatively little stealing to just "get by" day to day.
Often getting caught was the first indication to family that the parents or grandparents didn`t have as much money as they seemed to.