Saturday 23 February 2013

Grim Thought

The Single woman's worst nightmare is finding herself old, alone and homeless--or in public housing, where she will be menaced by young savages.

Many of us--perhaps because we first learn about life from books, babysitters or our grandmothers' fears--think that the great  protection from this fate is A Husband.

But I wonder how many widows there are who, despite these magic if temporary talismans, have found themselves old, alone and homeless or in public housing anyway.

I'm having a terribly busy day, so I can't find the statistic. Does anyone happen to know what percentage of widows in their country end up on welfare?

Update: The good news is that women are allowed to work, earn and sock money away into pension plans. Thought I'd better add that.

5 comments:

Leah said...

This is off topic . . . but when will we learn what Katie did?? :)

Jam said...

I don't know the statistics but elderly women are, historically, the group most likely to be in poverty so...

Alisha said...

Your Belle Soeur & Nulli and I had a talk about this as I was musing (hypothetically) about the idea of marrying for money, since, unfortunately for actors, there is usually not anything to put into pension plans. If I was a carefree heathen, and unconcerned with matters such as the sacredness of matrimony, scandal, vocational calling etc, perhaps I would go ahead and get married for greater economical stability...but I can't do that without betraying everything I believe about marriage and myself and so, therefore, I can only pray I won't ever end up old and alone...

Anonymous said...

I laughed so hard I choked on my morning coffee.
Well, heavens, I agree with Alisha about marriage ~ except I consider myself a carefree Catholic so I too continue to hope that I won't turn out a bitter and homeless old lady, surrounded by vicious young savages.
It does remind me to think more about the elderly, though. No idea about the statistic, but I've been in enough nursing homes with my kindergarten class to think, "My mother will NEVER be in one of these." The smells are enough to drive me batty.

M.E.G. said...

Perhaps I ought to work harder at being favorite aunt to my nieces and nephew--surely they wouldn't neglect an aged and eccentric relative!