UK minister calls on people to care for parents like children

As Britain struggles to manage the effects of an ageing population, a British minister today called on everyone to take care of their parents as they do to children.
David Mowat, the parliamentary under-secretary of state for community health and care, said that Britain's ageing population meant that citizens must take more responsibility of caring for the elderly.
"We need to start thinking as a society about how we deal with care of our own parents," he told the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee recently.
He said: "One of the things that has struck me as I've been doing this role is that nobody ever questions the fact that we look after our children, that's just obvious. Nobody ever says it is a caring responsibility, it's just what you do."

"I think some of that logic and some of the way we think about that, in terms of the sort of volume of numbers that we are seeing coming down the track, will have to impinge on the way we start thinking about how we look after our parents. In a way, it is a responsibility in terms of our life cycle that is similar."
The junior minister's comments came as local authorities across the UK struggle to manage the effects of Britain's ageing population.