Most of us are used to thinking that we will either end up taking care of our parents or put them in a retirement home where they will be taken care of. But this is also a matter of local flavor and culture.

In Italy for example, children tend to stay with their parents for much longer, sometimes until their mid 30s and the parents become an integral part of the family when they marry, this allows in a way for an intergenerational connectedness and support. But what happens when it's not even people taking care of the elderly but robots?

I found this Yahoo online article on Japan developing robots to take care of the elderly.

"A Japanese-led research team said it had made a seeing, hearing and smelling robot that can carry human beings and is aimed at helping care for the country's growing number of elderly."

This is one way in which a society and it's culture has decided to deal with taking care of the elderly, but how does this affect inter-generational relationships? Will the robots start occupying an emotional space in these people's lives as care takers? Will people entrust their elderly relatives more easily to robots, knowing that nothing can go wrong?

CATEGORY: AGEING