I wholeheartedly agree with Chuck that it is our responsibility to take care of our families. The one glaring difference I see between earlier generations and today's generation is the length of time one might potential have to care for a person. With modern medicines, we now have the ability to keep people alive much longer than previous generations did. Sure, they took care of mom when she was old and sick. However, when she got to the point that she could no longer care for herself or be ambulatory she did not live long. Pneumonia or some other ailment that afflicts bedridden people would quickly take over. Now, we have ways to treat those things (often multiple times) but still no way to improve their overall condition. Earlier generations were not faced with having to care for bedridden, 100% dependent family members nedding 24 hour, seven day a week care for potentially decades.

This does not remove our responsibility but it does present us with problems that earlier generations did not have.