Does “aging in place” really make sense?

So I’m not a gerentologist. I don’t even play one on TV. But this is what I see on a personal level:

my parents live in the home that they raised their family in. Two stories. The house is somewhat chaotic — it could use a major de-cluttering, but we (that is, the children) haven’t yet gotten as far as intervening, though I’m sure that’ll happen soon. Even though they’re comparatively young, as aging parents go (age 74), they struggle to go up the stairs, and dad has now fallen a number of times, and mom isn’t strong enough to help him get up, so it falls to a neighbor or to the paramedic.

We worry, the three of us kids. All of us live out of town, and it falls to our periodic visits to deal with yardwork, general home repairs, even cleaning the bathroom, since neither of them can get down on their hands and knees.

And Dad’s said, “I won’t leave this house until they carry me out.” We wonder, has he changed his mind in the meantime, or would he just get upset if we suggested it to him?

You know how seniors are running marathons and other extraordinary achievements? I think it deludes us into thinking that no one gets old and frail, at least not until they’re “old old” — I certainly never expected to be worrying about my parents at this age.

My in-laws got out while the getting was good. They left their house five years ago, moved to a condo with an elevator, a basement parking garage, a generously-sized balcony, and they haven’t regretted it.

So when I think of all the effort that’s put into helping seniors “age in place,” I just want to say, “STOP!” Can’t we instead spend a bit of time convincing seniors that the “family home” is just a thing, an object, which shouldn’t have such a deep attachment that it harms one’s quality of life? I’ve got to think, too, that “downsizing” at a comparatively younger age, when it can be felt to be a free choice, and when there’s plenty of time to accustom oneself to the new neighborhood and daily routines, is a better choice than waiting until the situation is desparate.

I know, this is a sample size of two. And there are further issues even after seniors move to a condo as my in-laws have, when they reach the age where they need housework help, Meals on Wheels, etc., and then a step further to more basic daily assistance. But we have to change our attitudes if we’re to be able to cope with ever-increasing numbers of elderly who’ll need more than just annual “fall clean-up” service days by the church youth group.

ANOTHER THOUGHT: there’s at least one very tangible way in which we build an incentive to stay in the “family home” and penalize downsizing: the “senior freeze” in property tax assessments. Stay in your too-large home and see your property taxes dwindle to nothingness relative to your neighbors. Move and lose the hard-won tax break. Why don’t we swap this out for relocation grants, to help with the not-inconsiderable cost of moving?