My 88-year-old dad knocked on my bedroom door at 12:30 am. I was sleeping so deeply that he just let himself in. (Note to self: buy a lockable doorknob asap). For the last 16 years, he’s lived on the lower level of the house, I’ve been upstairs. Turning my lamp on, I squinted at him incredulously. He never comes upstairs because he needs a walker, which makes flights of steps challenging. Clawing his way up leaning on the railing, he had penetrated my domain through sheer determination.
“Lisa, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I need your help. The stupid woman at the audiology office messed up my hearing aid, and now the rubber cap is stuck in my ear. Get a forceps and fish it out for me.“ Since he’s very hearing impaired, he can’t gauge how loudly he’s talking, so his booming words hurt my drowsy ears. All I wanted to do was fix the problem and go back to sleep, so I plodded into the kitchen to find the forceps. Even at this hour, I knew that one should never dive into another person’s ears with a sharp tool, especially as bleary-eyed as I was. But he’s already deaf, I thought. It won’t really matter if the forceps hits something in there, will it?
As I extracted the black rubber cap and plopped it into his hand, he thanked me profusely. Unlike my dad, who was worried when he left my room that he might tumble down the stairs on the way to his bedroom, I couldn’t muster any more concern for him. I was half asleep and closed my door, intent on becoming unconscious again, which took an hour. “Emergencies” like this have been happening often recently. The next morning, I suggested to him that if he needs help 24/7, maybe it’s time to move into assisted living. I still work every day with a long commute and can’t be waking up at all hours of the night. He ignored that text. (He can’t hear me, so we’ve been texting for years). He’s set on someday dying in this house.
Say what you like about Elon Musk – his salute, his trillion dollars, his chainsawing – he might really change the nature of elderly care. With his humanoid robots, he could help seniors remain in their homes, stay independent, and be, overall, less of a pain in the ass. He estimates that there’ll be a billion robots roaming the earth ten years from now. Eventually, each mechanical dude will cost only about $25,000, the cost of a small car. Most importantly, if the elderly become less work for their children, more kids would entertain the thought of having a multigenerational home. After all, mom can be fun to be around if you’re not doing her upkeep and are just listening to her stories. Elon might end up smoothing the whole dynamic of our child-parent relationships with these robots that would take the shit, literally, so that we kids won’t have to.
As a Gen Xer, I look forward to acquiring a robot to assist me as I age, as my children audibly sigh with relief. We’ll be the first generation that won’t have to feel like we’re being a decades-long burden on our kids. That’s a huge gift and will be a profound step forward for our species.
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