Why visiting one’s ageing mother is not enough: on filial duties to prevent and alleviate parental loneliness

Abstract

As people grow old, many risk becoming chronically lonely which is associated with e.g. depression, dementia, and increased mortality. Whoever else should help to protect them from this risk, various philosophers have argued that any children that they might have will often be among them. Proceeding on this assumption, this article considers what filial duties to protect ageing parents from loneliness consist of, or might consist of. I develop my answer by showing that a view that may be intuitively plausible, namely that they simply require children to visit their ageing parents regularly when they can do so at reasonable cost and call, text, and/or email them from time to time, is defective in three respects. First, it ignores children’s potential responsibilities to encourage and/or facilitate social interaction between their parents and third parties. Second, it ignores their potential responsibilities to help provide their parents with non-human companionship. Third, it elides over their duties to coordinate their efforts to offer loneliness protection with others. What I end up proposing instead, then, is an approach for protecting ageing parents from loneliness that is multi-faceted.

“It Makes You Feel Good to Help!”: An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Peer Mentoring in Long-Term Care

“…Peer mentoring as an approach to improving mental health may be useful in these settings. While visiting family members help protect some residents from loneliness, other available agents such as fellow care home residents are often overlooked (de Vries, 2021). Peer mentoring has been described as empathetic peer support offered on a one-to-one basis that includes a form of guidance or advice (Dennis, 2003).…”

Privacy-Preserving Social Ambiance Measure From Free-Living Speech Associates With Chronic Depressive and Psychotic Disorders

“…Higher cohesion in neighborhoods ( 6 ) are associated with less loneliness, less isolation, and improved sociability ( 7 ). Moreover, research shows that a richer social ambiance is associated with better mental health ( 8 ), and enriching social ambiance is a fundamental element in the treatment of mental illness ( 9 ), whether by social skills training or cognitive behavioral therapy ( 10 ). The mere presence of another individual can alleviate stress, but if a person is uncomfortable around others, lacks the ability to initiate/maintain a conversation, or to initiate social activity, this refuge will be absent from their lives ( 11 ).…”