27/09/2026
Working In A UK Care Home Completely Changed My Perspective On Old Age And How We Care For Our Elderly Parents.
Before now, I had the typical Nigerian mentality about care homes.
Like many Nigerians, I believed that elderly people ended up in care homes because their children were irresponsible, selfish or simply didn't love them enough to look after them.
In fact, in Nigeria, telling someone that you intend to put your elderly parents in a care home is almost equivalent to announcing that you intend to abandon them.
We have somehow convinced ourselves that the ultimate demonstration of love for our ageing parents is to keep them at home, regardless of whether we have the time, resources, expertise or emotional capacity to give them the care they actually need.
But working in an actual care home in the UK for just one month completely changed my perspective.
And I think we need to have this conversation.
Firstly, one of the things that struck me was the social aspect of living in a care home.
Imagine being 85 years old, surrounded by other elderly people who are 78, 82, 87 and 90. People who understand your experiences, your physical limitations, your humour and even your frustrations.
People you can gist with, laugh with, play games with, watch television with and occasionally quarrel with.
You wake up every morning knowing that you have people to interact with. There are organised activities, communal dining, birthday celebrations and opportunities to form genuine friendships.
Of course, not every resident participates in everything, and some still experience loneliness. But the opportunity for companionship is there.
Now compare that with what happens to some elderly people back home.
Their children have relocated abroad or moved to different cities. The elderly parent is left in one enormous house with a domestic worker or a carer who may have absolutely no professional training in elderly care.
Sometimes, this carer is a young person who has very little in common with the elderly person and understandably wants to live their own life.
The parent spends the entire day watching television, sleeping or staring through the window, waiting for someone to call.
In some unfortunate situations, the carer can lock the elderly person inside the house for hours and go about their personal business. There may be nobody checking whether the parent has eaten, taken their medication, fallen in the bathroom or developed a medical emergency.
Yet, because the parent is technically living in their own home, we congratulate ourselves for being responsible children.
But is keeping your parents in their own house the same thing as actually caring for them?
This is where my perspective changed.
Secondly, I discovered that elderly care is not simply about feeding someone, bathing them and ensuring they take their medication.
It is an entire profession.
In the care home where I worked, residents had individual care plans reflecting their needs. There were established routines, documentation, medication procedures and systems for reporting concerns.
The staff were expected to pay attention to changes in residents' physical and emotional well-being.
And something else caught my attention.
The residents had RIGHTS.
An elderly person could refuse certain activities, express dissatisfaction, make choices about their daily routine and, depending on their capacity and care needs, participate in decisions concerning their own care.
There was an emphasis on dignity.
You weren't supposed to treat someone like a child simply because they were 90 years old and needed assistance getting out of bed.
You weren't supposed to assume that because someone could no longer walk independently, they had also lost their ability to think, make decisions or have personal preferences.
That distinction is extremely important.
Obviously, I am not suggesting that every care home in the UK is wonderful. Neglect, understaffing, loneliness and abuse can happen in institutional settings too.
However, a properly managed care home has professional standards, oversight, safeguarding procedures and systems of accountability that an elderly person living alone with an untrained domestic worker may not have.
And that brings me to another interesting observation.
Why do we automatically associate living with family with happiness?
An elderly person can live in a house full of relatives and still be terribly lonely.
Imagine being 83 years old and living with your son, his wife and their three children.
Your son leaves for work at 7 a.m. His wife has her own responsibilities, she secretly resents you because of the stress you are putting her through. The children leave for school and return to spend their evenings doing homework or using their devices.
Everybody loves Grandma.
Everybody provides for Grandma.
But who actually spends time with Grandma?
Who listens when she wants to tell the same story for the seventh time?
Who notices that she has become withdrawn because she misses having meaningful conversations with people of her generation?
Who takes her outside to enjoy some sunshine or encourages her to participate in activities that stimulate her mind?
I remember back then in Nigeria when my father-in-law came to live with us, he was a healthy 80+ man who could carry out every activity himself, I used to sit with him and we would gist about everything. He was very happy with me, he complained that when he went to spend time in his other son's house, the only person he always saw was the househelp who would just drop his food and leave. He said the loneliness he experienced made him tell his son and his wife to return him to the village.
We sometimes confuse physical proximity with emotional companionship.
And I think that is a mistake.
Another thing I came to appreciate was the importance of preserving the relationship between elderly parents and their children.
Sometimes, when an ageing parent develops complex medical or personal care needs, their adult children become full-time carers.
Depending on the circumstances, this can be physically exhausting, financially demanding and emotionally overwhelming.
A daughter who was once able to spend quality time with her mother may suddenly find herself juggling her career, marriage, children and the responsibility of providing round-the-clock care.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with caring for your parents personally. In fact, for many families, it is a beautiful arrangement.
But there is equally nothing shameful about recognising that your parent's needs have exceeded what you can reasonably provide at home.
Sometimes, allowing trained professionals to handle the demanding aspects of elderly care means that your visits can become opportunities for genuine companionship rather than being entirely consumed by caregiving responsibilities.
You can visit your mother, take her favourite food, sit with her, laugh with her and enjoy her company while knowing that her essential needs are being attended to.
And please, putting a parent in a care home does not automatically mean that you have surrendered your responsibilities as their child.
You can remain actively involved in their care, visit regularly, monitor the quality of services they receive, participate in important decisions and advocate for them whenever necessary.
In fact, family involvement is extremely important even when an elderly person lives in a professional care facility.
A care home should never become an excuse to forget that your parents exist.
Now, I understand that our Nigerian situation is different.
We do not have the same level of established elderly care infrastructure, regulatory oversight or access to professional care facilities across the country.
There are also cultural considerations. Many elderly Nigerians genuinely prefer living in familiar surroundings, close to their children, grandchildren, neighbours, churches and communities.
And their preferences matter.
I would never advocate removing an elderly person from an environment where they are happy, safe, socially connected and receiving excellent care simply because institutional care is available.
Neither would I suggest that every elderly person needs to live in a care home.
My argument is much simpler.
We need to stop measuring how much people love their elderly parents by where those parents live.
Some parents will receive exceptional care in their children's homes. Others will receive exceptional care in professionally managed residential facilities.
And sadly, some will experience neglect in both environments.
The location is not the ultimate measure of love. The quality of care is.
As our parents grow older, we should be asking ourselves more important questions.
Are they safe? Are they happy? Are they receiving appropriate medical attention? Do they have meaningful social interactions? Are they treated with dignity? Do they have a say in how they want to spend the remaining years of their lives?
Most importantly, are we making these decisions for their benefit or simply to protect ourselves from what society might say?
Because sometimes, what we call African family values is genuinely beautiful.
And sometimes, what we defend as tradition deserves to be questioned.
I sincerely hope that Nigeria develops a stronger elderly care system, including professionally managed residential facilities, community day centres, home-care services and other options that allow families to choose what works for their circumstances.
Our elderly population deserves more than just food, medication and a roof over their heads.
They deserve friendship, stimulation, independence where possible, professional support and the opportunity to enjoy their remaining years.
And perhaps the most important lesson I learnt from working in a UK care home is this:
Growing old should not automatically mean becoming isolated, losing your independence or spending the rest of your life waiting for your children to have time for you.
Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for your parents is not necessarily to keep them under your roof.
It is to ensure that wherever they live, they are genuinely living and not merely existing.
Let us stop confusing keeping our parents at home with giving our parents a good life.
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