Morally obliged to volunteer if retired?

[notnownorma]

Just that, really. If one has no grandchildren to care for, is one morally obliged to give something back to the community if no longer working and in good health? If so, how much time is "enough"?

Inspired by a conversation I recently had with someone thinking of retiring soon.

Dotjones takes the piss on a lot of threads. On the one about benefits, they are saying that under 25 year olds should not be given a penny and should live with their parents, even if they have a child

^^ this. I'm surprised how many people think they will get an answer from that poster. He/she plops onto threads, posts some controversial nonsense and then disappears. I think they must be very bored...

I do agree that some places don't seem to appreciate the work that volunteers do. I used to volunteer for a local cultural group. I got fed up of the emails ticking off volunteers for not doing this, that or the other correctly and left.

However most places don't behave like that and are really grateful to their volunteers.

Can I also add that even though you're volunteering and not paid you have to be reliable. Someone constantly not showing up for their stint at the charity shop or their rostered morning for delivering meals on wheels is more of a hindrance than a help.

Wisper10 Dotjones "The problem is pensioners on final salary schemes retiring in their 50s then just enjoying life at our expense".
Can you please explain how you have contributed to my private pension. If you have I'm ever so grateful but just to let you know that the company never told me anything, I'm wondering whether they pocketed the money rather than put it into the pot of money that I'd been accumulating for 42 years

If I may butt in. Perhaps not you, but there were certainly unsustainable practises in the past regarding final salary pension schemes and early retirement which are not available or sustainable now. I earlier gave the example of my FIL, who retired at 50. Not mid or late fifties, but 50 on the dot. He worked for 26 years in his entire life, and in a lower level admin job like his, it is simply not possible to accumulate enough savings from working for a 3rd of your life to live at the level he is doing. I don't know the details of how his company financed it, and it seems likely that he was one of those ones they got rid of by offering retirement, but there it is.

Society simply cannot afford these generous schemes any more for fairly ordinary workers. Now it seems that in your case, you worked rather harder than my FIL and paid more in tax but he had a fairly ordinary job and not in one of the essential fields, such as police, fire or medical either, just in a large private company.

Somewhat entertainingly (you have to laugh or you'd cry), FIL thinks there is something wrong with DH and I that we "haven't worked hard enough" in order to be able to retire at 50 too, although unlike him, we have professional, degree qualified jobs. He isn't even aware of the rules on the age you have to be to take your pension now, etc. So insulated has he been from the realities of life that he comes across as a spoilt child. Him and MIL have a remarkably well funded retirement (she was a teacher who retired at 55) for people who retired so early, but still like to pull the "we are poor pensioners" line when it suits them. I think they do actually believe that they worked really hard (and MIL did) so as to be able to afford their quite lavish lifestyle (6 bedroom house, holiday home, 2 cars, motorhome, 2 additional foreign holidays per year, etc), and that "young people today" ie everyone else simply hasn't worked hard enough.

Looking at this from the other side, I think many retired people make a massive contribution to society and the economy through unpaid work, which is unrecognised by measures such as GDP.

Most of the working mothers I know who are thriving at work have support from grandparents with childcare/ nursery or school pick ups, or when baby is too sick for nursery, or just respite at the weekend to get stuff done.

The mother and baby groups run by retirees at my local churches were so important when I had PND.

With pension age going up for my generation, in 10/15 years there will suddenly be a huge decline in older people supporting society through unpaid work and I think it will further contribute to inequalities in society.

Society has an ancient but well-developed system for keeping score, it's called money. If you have enough money to last you the rest of your life, without working, then you've put more into society than you've taken out and you're entitled to live on your stored credit.

(If any of your money was voluntarily given to you rather than earned by you, then it would be wasting the credit the giver chose to transfer not to use it however you wish.)

I mean it very literally when I say money is social credit. It's only recently, when I was in my fifties, that I've felt I've fully understood what money is, after reading an explanation on the Bank of England website. All money is portable debt. If a bunch of people landed on a desert island, with no hope of returning to the outside world, and no existing money, the way money could be bootstrapped into existence is that all work could be rewarded by the beneficiaries with written IOUs. The IOUs would be freely transferable, meaning when A gives B an IOU in return for a fish, B can pass that same IOU to C in part-payment for help building a shelter. At the point these IOUs written by everyone are circulating, money has been invented. Later on, to make the system simpler and more reliable, everyone may decide to exchange the IOUs they hold for an IOU written by the most trusted person on the island. At that point banking has been invented, the trusted person is the banker, and the banker's IOUs are banknotes. Because other IOUs are no longer circulated but are always exchanged with the bank, they are no longer money, they are now just cheques.

(I am so fascinated with this idea that I intend to work it into every thread I can...)

That system fails to account for the unpaid work of women. Many women put more into society than they take out and end up in poverty during retirement.

I used to work in a job where my helpers were mostly volunteers.

I discovered that everyone volunteered for their own reason and these included getting over a bereavement, loneliness, boredom, wanting to boast that you were a wonderful person as you were a volunteer, feeling better that you could lord it over the service users (who were elderly), other volunteers were recovering from mental health crises/alcoholism and there were many other reasons.

Looking after the volunteers was the most difficult part of my job! Partly because the management never told me why the people were volunteering (I know it was private) but it would have been helpful for me to have an idea.

If people had been forced to be there it would have been far worse.

I wouldn't say there is a moral obligation to volunteer - I would not judge someone for not doing so. But I do believe it is morally positive if people do - and I know plenty who have and very much respect that.

You forgot to mention the many people who volunteer because they are also decent people who want to help out.
Frankly you sound as you might be someone who makes volunteers feel uncomfortable or a nuisance

Out of interest I wonder how many women volunteers are not retired per se but have been SAHMs all their lives and need something to do now the children have grown up/left home?

It's people like you who put others off volunteering.

I'm both a 'coal face' volunteer within our organisation, and chair of the board of trustees. I work closely with our paid staff member who manages our sixty volunteers, and thank goodness she doesn't look at them in the way you do.

Of course our volunteer base is made up of lots of different characters (and of ages from 21 to late 80s) but I don't recognise the negative pictures that you paint in those people who give up their time to help those who need our services..

If I am a net contributor do I still need to volunteer when I retire on money I saved (because state pension is a joke)?

I think that is a very interesting, thought provoking post @Getoff , thank you.

@Gruffling I assume the reason this system fails to take into account the unpaid work of women is that the majority of people who would give women an IOU are children who don't give out IOUs and as a mother you wouldn't expect them to 'pay' you for your caring. I'm not saying that doesn't stop it being work, I have 3 children and believe me I know about all the 'work' that makes. I just think caring for your own children cannot be conflated with building a house for a random person you would expect to receive payment from for example.

You must be joking? Morally obliged? No way.

I've done paid work where I was unappreciated and taken for granted. What happens to good workers when they've proved themselves to be conscientious, go the extra mile, are good timekeepers and take little time off sick? They're given more work to do while the lazy worker is never asked.

And you want us to do this for nothing? I believe there's a phrase much beloved by you young'uns on here, it goes along the lines of f£(k off to the far side of f!(k and then some more. I've earned my retirement mate and I intend to do exactly as I please. Yes, I agree that I'm cynical but that's life experience for you.

I mean really, you're asking for a smack, aren't you?

I presume you're not envisaging a time when you might need meals on wheels, lifts to medical appointments, or any assistance for which you do not have to pay.
Obliged may be the wrong word, but you seem to see absolutely no value in volunteering whatsoever.

Dotjones I am struggling to see what on earth they should be "paying back society for!" They are retired people not prisoners FFS! Maybe they have had enough of working their ass off for this ghastly govt, and heaven forbid might like a few years out to grass for a break! No requirement for any voluntary work!

This is insane!!! Pay society back??? Do you not understand how pensions, retirement age and replacement theories of economics work? 🙄

No one is obliged to do voluntary work. However if you have lots of spare time, no caring duties and are in good health why not be prepared to give a couple of hours a week to voluntary work?

If more people did, current volunteers would not feel pressured into doing more. Also people could drop out of voluntary work as they get older and are starting to find it too tiring without worrying they're leaving fellow volunteers in the lurch.

But some people like to just sit back and leave it all to others.

Now, no need to be jealous of those of us lucky enough to be able to retire in our mid fifties. I laughed when I read your post as if you're covering the cost of my pension 🤣🤣🤣🤣. I worked very hard at a well paid job and prioritised paying into my pension so that I could retire when I'm still young enough to enjoy life. Which I do. All of which leaves me with no time to volunteer. Even if I wanted to. Now, get back to work🤣🤣🤣🤣

Don't be ridiculous.
Look up the meaning of "voluntary".

Do it if you want to, not because you feel obliged

I will have spent over 40 years caring for people when I retire and, like Mojoj, am anticipating PLAYTIME 😅My joints, back, bones, everything is knackered, I'm knackered, I adore my job and will have to be carried out of the building when I do retire but please, enough of this nonsense. 😛

So anyone who has a different opinion to you is talking 'nonsense'?

I don't think anyone has said that someone who isn't up to it should be volunteering.

No, OP is talking nonsense. Her original contention was that if you had plenty of spare time, no caring commitments and good health, you ought to volunteer. Followed by the pithy observation that some people like to sit back and leave it all to other people.

My point is that OP has failed to process that it's absolutely none of her business !!!! She equates not volunteering (subject to her caveats above) to sitting back, leaving it to others and, by implication, really not giving a toss.

She needs to realise that the people sitting back may, in fact, have spent all of their working lives caring for others. And if they haven't, so what?

Here's to sitting back, chilling out and howling at the virtue signalling, ought to volunteer brigade. 🍺🍷🍧😎

Do point to where the OP actually said these things, @GerronBuzanDoThaWomwok