Senior journalist Wong Pei Ting's father had a stroke and she was thrown into a dilemma over whether to send her father to a nursing home. She asked SMU Dean of Students and Professor of Sociology (Practice) Paulin Straughan, who is also Director for the SMU Centre for Research on Successful Ageing, why millennials like herself are finding it harder to support their parents the same way that their parents’ generation supported theirs. Prof Straughan attributed it to a change of mindsets. She explained how mindsets have changed and noted that norms must change with the times as families are smaller and everyone is living longer.
