Whatever happened to honour thy mother and father?

I remember a long time ago, there was a TV series on TVM with the short but weighty title of WIRT (Inheritance).

In the usual style of most Maltese TV series since time immemorial (save for a few exceptions) it was heavy with melodrama and angst, but what had struck me the most at the time was how apt it was to create a series about such an important subject for so many people.

As a nation, I find that many are quite obsessed with the thought of what they are bound to inherit one day. I will never forget the shock I felt once on overhearing a man loudly boast how rich he would be when his in-laws finally passed away. He was practically rubbing his hands and licking his lips with greed. And I privately wondered whether his in-laws (or indeed, his wife) knew how anxiously he was waiting for them to kick the bucket to get his hands on their hard-earned money.

Then, of course, there are those highly unpleasant scenes which play out at lawyers’ offices where a number of siblings gather round in a tight, determined group around his desk, still grimly dressed in black fresh from the funeral, demanding to know what was in the will, and who got what, and why did that sister/brother inherit more “when it was I who took care of my parents round the clock?” I once inadvertently and unwillingly happened to witness such an ugly scenario, and the whole thing was reminiscent of vultures hungrily circling around a corpse. The nakedness of their sheer avarice, instead of the mourning which one would expect at such a time, was completely unnerving.

And I am sure I am not the only one who has heard of long drawn court cases, spanning decades, over some inherited property or other, over which the heirs cannot agree. Or else a dispute over a last will and testament which divides families who end up never speaking to each other. Ever.

So when I read Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly Justyne Caruana’s statement about the drafting of a new Bill which would not allow those who neglect their parents the right to “access their parents’ will”, what immediately sprang to mind was that (well-intentioned as it may be), this Bill would become a minefield for potential litigation and even more sibling rivalry and feuds.

She was quoted by the Times of Malta as saying that “If an elderly person ends up in a vulnerable and dangerous situation because of his or her family members, then they must carry some of the burden. If these family members insist on dumping their responsibility entirely on the State, then they should not expect to participate in the administration of a person’s estate. That would then fall under the State’s responsibility.”

The report added that the new law will also allow the State to intervene on an elderly person’s behalf and take certain decisions for the good of that person,

The mention of state intervention in private, personal property always understandably gives people the jitters and it hardly needs to be said that this can give rise to all sorts of potential abuse.

A lot of questions spring to mind, especially as to how exactly the State can truly determine who has neglected his parents when there are several siblings involved? What is being implied is that this law would give the State the right to change the terms of a will, which is unheard of, and probably illegal in itself.

And what is meant by the ‘administration of an estate falling under the State’s responsibility’? That sentence alone has raised more than a few eyebrows for very obvious reasons. The mention of state intervention in private, personal property always understandably gives people the jitters and it hardly needs to be said that this can give rise to all sorts of potential abuse.

However, having said that, I do understand the government’s concerns when we have a hospital which cannot cope with the amount of social cases being “dumped” on our public health service. It is a fact that there are many elderly people who are living in homes, who are never paid a visit by their adult children. We also hear news stories of people in their 70s and older who live alone, and who are found deceased in their homes after several days, only because neighbours reported a stench.

How can it be that no one in their family calls to check up on them I always wonder? So I agree with Dr Caruana that appalling neglect and blatant abuse does occur, and that adult children should not simply turns their backs on their elderly relatives only to then turn up at the reading of the will so that they can collect their inheritance.

But we all know there is a difference between what one “should” do, and what one actually does. It should stand to reason that, having raised you, you should then take care of their parents in their old age. We’re Catholics, remember? Just to jog your memory, there’s that little old Commandment, known as number four: Honour thy mother and father. But people can come up with all sorts of reasons to justify why they are estranged from their parents; sometimes it is justified, such as if there was child abuse, but at other times, it all sounds like just mere excuses because …well, because it’s too much of a burden, frankly.

There is also abuse involved when parents are bullied and terrorized into signing over property, money or even forced into changing their wills, with the threat that the children will not visit them otherwise, or that they will be thrown into a home. We like to pride ourselves that as a country we are very family-oriented, but believe me there are more unsavoury, despicable stories like this than we would care to admit. Will the law being proposed by Dr Caruana solve any of this? My hunch is that it will make things worse (although, of course, I have no doubt that was definitely not the intention). Because the minute that callous adult children get wind of such a possible law, the bullying will be even worse, as they will want to grab all they can now, so that the State will not interfere with their estate.

The government needs to tread very carefully on this one and needs to draft a Bill which protects the elderly by putting into place the necessary safeguards but without stepping over the line into the murky territory of dabbling with people’s inheritance rights.

The other issue of instilling a basic sense of decency and simple morality in hardened people, urging them to take care of those who are aged and at their most vulnerable, is a much higher nut to crack.