Happy Family Caregivers Month! Did you know more than half of Americans over age 50 are now caregivers? November is a time to remember family caregivers, whose crucial and often unpaid and unrecognized labor keeps family members–especially older family members–alive, well, and supported. This work disproportionately falls to women everywhere in the world, and research shows race, gender, age, work, education, and income intersectional factors can increase mental and physical difficulties for caregivers.
We are all counseled to bear one another’s burdens in Galatians 6:2 and Mosiah 18:8-9. Inside and outside the Church, women take up most of the work of mourning and comforting and bearing caregiver burdens. Sometimes, this is a decision the whole family reaches by consensus. But more often than not, I’ve seen that when a family member is sick or aging and in need of care the assumption is that a daughter (likely the eldest daughter) or daughter-in-law will step into the caregiver role.
Depending on the intensity of support needed, this can be a monumental sacrifice for the caregiver, with costs for that person’s career, mental health, and ability to be present for other family members such as their own children. There is also a monetary cost to caregiving that may disrupt caregivers’ ability to save for their own retirement, creating a difficult cycle where each generation relies just as heavily on the next for financial support when aging. This can be even more pronounced in immigrant families, where the broader network of support in their new country is limited and cultural factors can place additional pressure on caregivers to keep caregiving in the family.
At the same time, family caregiving can be a wonderful opportunity to serve and love our family members. For adult children, caregiving for a parent or older family member can be a way to show love and respect for the sacrifices that person or generation made for them. Most older people prefer to age at home rather than in a senior living facility, and they can often experience greater comfort and peace either in their own home or the home of a family caregiver. Caregiving can provide an opportunity for a special closeness on both sides of the caregiving equation.
Although the majority of family caregiving cases are for older relatives, caregivers also support people who are sick, people who are disabled, or people who have been in accidents or are in treatment or recovery. Taking care of a sick or disabled spouse is an opportunity for many couples to live the values they professed in their wedding vows, and in the Church it can be an expression of their eternal commitment. Taking care of a sick or disabled child is more than just a responsibility for many parents and caregivers, but a sacred opportunity to show God’s love and their own love for their child by making sure that child’s needs are met and they can reach their full potential. Because people in need of care can be any age, some family caregivers participate in caregiving their whole lives.
In my opinion, caregiving is an expression of the pure love of Christ. It is rarely easy and comes with real sacrifices, but it can also be incredibly meaningful for our relationships and our understanding of God’s love for us. At the same time, there are broader things we should do differently to lessen the sacrifices made by any single person. When the books of Galatians and Mosiah tell us to bear one another’s burdens, they don’t just mean people in need of care directly. They mean the caregivers themselves.
If you are a family caregiver, I see you. Thank you for your service–without which our whole society and community would quite literally fall apart.
If you know a family caregiver, take an opportunity this month to help bear their burdens. Thank them for all they’ve done and are doing for the family. If you’re nearby, babysit if they have kids or do some of their chores or offer temporary caregiving services so they can get a break. Treat them to a nice meal or a massage or a concert or whatever makes them happy. Help them manage expectations with family members if that’s challenging in that family. If you’re far away, order groceries or a meal delivered or purchase them a house cleaning or a virtual personal assistant to help with day-to-day tasks. See if there are things you can do remotely, such as follow up on medical appointments for the family member in need of care. Reflect on how that person became the caregiver: were their needs considered? Is it time to re-evaluate and see if others can step in and take the lead, even if just for a season?
Many of us will one day be caregivers if we aren’t already, and family caregivers are all around us. Let’s all do our part to honor, recognize, and help them, this month and every month.
14 Responses
My parents moved in with our family over night. My father had become too difficult for my mother to manage alone. He was hospitalized and nobody would take a challenging man into their facility. They stayed with us almost a full year as Drs adjusted his medications so that he was less likely to have the tantrums he had wile living alone with my mother. It was incredibly traumatic for our family and what got me through was really good medical insurance that provided me with mental health care. I would have crumbled to pieces had it not been for my counselor..
I was drowning in taking care of a toddler, my older child with additional needs, and my husband with his mental health problems. Counseling got us into a much better place (that and the self-reliance that time brought the children as they learned how to do more to take care of themselves).
Same to “crumbled to pieces”.
I’m so sorry you both went through that. What an absolute nightmare.
This is lovely.
Good, Sustainable Care-giving = Setting Boundaries.
If you talk to wise women in Relief Society, they will tell you about the times they set those boundaries and “took care of themselves” and “balance”. They know that “saying No” is one of the most important and hardest things younger women need to learn in order to be their very best caregivers. They know that “saying Yes” can be super important as well (opportunities to get out of the situation and out of their heads) – and that might need additional accommodations and creative thinking offered.
Amen to everything you said. This is something I’m actively learning now.
What a tender reminder. Thank you, Nicole. It made me think of delivering Meals on Wheels to seniors in my community who don’t have caregivers and rely on the nutrition of the meals and the company of the deliverers for their quality of life. Hunger among seniors has increased in Utah (where I live) by 45% in the past decade and is the highest demographic for hunger deaths. The work of caregivers is so important and saves lives. What a tender gift. I love the balance of beauty and sacrifice in your post and the list of things I can do to help.
Thank you for sharing this story. My heart breaks thinking about our elderly (our collective wisdom, our progenitors without whom we wouldn’t exist, our carriers of knowledge no one else possesses, etc) going hungry in a neglectful society.
I think that care givers should get paid by whatever insurance covers the patient’s other care. If the person being cared for was alone they would be in some kind of long term facility, so home care is saving insurance or the government one big bunch of cash. So, why not pay the person who gives up a paying job outside their home to care for aging family members or others who are disabled. Putting the care giving individual on some kind of salary or just an amount per patient would still be much cheaper than institutional care and would certainly make providing the care less of a financial disaster for the person doing the caregiving. It would actually save the government money because more people would step up and agree to do it. I am in the position right now where my brother needs care. But, nope, I won’t agree to do it because I am not sacrificing again to care for a family member. I cared for my children when they were preschool, I cared for my mother, stopping full time work both times, and now that I am retired, nope, not giving up my time to save the government from paying for his care. So, I told the medical social worker there is no one who can take care of him for a few months while he needs rehab, and when he needs permanent care, which will be soon, I will do the same. Now, if there was financial compensation, I have daughters who work from home who need money enough that they would do it.
I know there are some places that do compensate in-home caregivers, even family members. For example, I’ve heard from my own circles that there are some opportunities for this in Colorado. I think there are several other countries that also do a lot better managing the shared cost of elder care across the community as well instead of expecting a single person to bear the full sacrifice.
I’ve watched so many women undertake long-term care of special needs children. It can create beautiful relationships. Our human needs connect us to each other. However, I’m with Anna: caregiving work really does need to be compensated. Caretakers are cut out of benefits because their labor doesn’t count towards social security work credits. The lack of high-paying flexible part-time jobs doesn’t help either. Elder care is particularly tricky because it is less predictable than childcare and tends to get harder rather than easier with time. Working conditions of family caretaking can be grueling with few breaks, and yet we just expect (women) to do this work. This topic always reminds me of this “job interview” clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYZDgcCNl7g
I’ve never seen that clip before! Thank you so much for sharing that. It was so powerful.
It really is. I saw it when it was first posted years and years ago, and I’ve had occasions to look it up multiple times. It helped me understand that parenting is work that would be unethical for any company to demand from an employee, yet we just expect this work to be done. If we look at parenting from a workplace perspective, it’s outrageously unregulated labor with next to no safety controls. I was fascinated earlier this year when I heard this NPR story about Kith and Kin, a program to teach informal caregivers basic skills (and as a bonus, many caregivers who attend become long term friends). It sounded like a professionalized version of what I was fortunate to have after my oldest was born: a fabulous conglomeration of formal and informal meet-ups, including a weekly Relief Society mom’s group. Most of that support network was gone by the time I had my youngest, even though I lived in the same area. It would be valuable to have a government sponsored resource to train and support caregivers.
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/08/nx-s1-5026975/family-friend-neighbor-child-care-work-arizona
My siblings and I undertook the caregiving of our mother for a little over 6 years before her death. She took turns living with each of us.. I was in my early 40s with small children. I remember realizing pretty quickly that no one who hadn’t experienced caregiving personally really understood how hard it was. When I would try to mention that it was hard all I would get was, “Aren’t you blessed to have your mother with you?” Frankly, no. I didn’t feel blessed at all.
And yet the people who understood caregiving provided THE. BEST support.
You are right that we need to see and recognize this labor. I need to do better. It’s been more than a decade and I have started to forgot how hard it was. Thank you for the reminder.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. It is truly hard, and you’re right that it makes such a difference when people see that and support.