Girlfriend wishes to contribute to my mortgage

[Angilion]

It's not really about being a servant. I take my dad to hospital, do jobs your him, help him with finances, etc. I don't wipe his arse ( at least not yet). Without me, who's going to do this?

The argument I was replying to was that the reason to have children was so that they would serve you and give you money when you were older and that not having children was incomprehensible because it would leave you without that. I wasn't disagreeing with people doing those things for their parents. I was disagreeing with that being so much the reason to have children that it was incomprehensible that anyone wouldn't have children for that purpose.

 

[Angilion]

My grandad never needed his butt wiped until his final 2 months before he died and for that time Macmillan helped with the vast majority. He lived till he was 93 and would have lived longer if his eyesight didn't pack in as that vastly reduced his mobility. He would take me to school in the mornings. Take and watch me play football every weekend and watch me train during the week. He also worked part time till he was 78. That physical and social interaction he had with me I believe was key to him living to an old age. He never used a walking stick or mobility scooter despite having arthritis and was mentally sharp all the way to the end. It had a long lasting impact on myself really as people 10-20 years younger were in far worse condition than he was.

Something that stuck in my head was said by someone in their 70s who's a bodybuilder. He was talking about how he thought activity and attitude interacted with aging and said "I've seen a lot of young guys older than me". Obviously he's an extreme case physically (he'd be in superb shape if he was in his early 20s, let alone early 70s) but I think the general idea is sound. I know a fair few older people through my job and I see the same thing in a less physically dramatic way. Age is more than "just a number", but the number can be offset to an extent by lifestyle. I think you're right about how beneficial the interaction with your grandfather was. It makes a difference, often a big difference.

 

[Hades]

To keep himself mentally active my grandfather used to keep O Level maths papers at home and go through them (for those too young to remember, the O Level was the forerunner of the GCSE. He was also on his roof fixing the tiles in his 80s, something I'm not brave enough to do.