The Paradox of Caregiving
My mom called, panicking about her energy bill. This has been an ongoing panic this winter. Energy costs are higher, she’s getting older, and her house isn’t very energy efficient. She’s cold and yet keeps threatening to turn off the heat and just sit under blankets. Everyone keeps telling her she doesn’t need to do that, me most of all.
Recently, she received her latest bill, which was almost double what it had been the previous month. Even that didn’t make sense to me so I called the company to inquire about what could be happening. Turns out the account was still under my dad’s name. This added a layer of complexity to this because he died more than four years ago and no, I don’t remember the last four digits of his social security number.
Anyway, between Mom and me, we figured out that the previous month’s bill had only been an estimate as they were short-staffed with meter readers. They adjusted the current bill to reflect the actual usage from the last cycle and this cycle. Okay, that would explain the higher bill.
Problem resolved AND my mom called the company to get her name on the account instead of my dad’s name. Everything is figured out, woohoo!
And then I get a call this morning for Mom, and she’s panicking again. Another bill from the energy company has arrived and this time it’s for even more money. She’s panicked. She’s stressed. She doesn’t know what to do and she doesn’t feel capable of figuring it out on her own.
My blood pressure starts to rise.
I was just about to do my morning yoga, something I’ve been away from for weeks, and my head is not in the problem-solving space. I’m resentful of having to figure this out for her. She’s an adult, isn’t she? Why can’t she call the energy company and ask for an explanation? Why does she have to call me, stress me out, and add to my list of things I need to do?
Of course, I don’t say any of this to her. I try to keep my voice calm even though I’m anything but that. It probably comes through, though, that I’m annoyed or frustrated or generally put out by this entire thing. I tell her I’ll do some investigating and will call her back.
Reading her emails from the last few days, I start to get a sense of what may be happening. The company closed out the account under Dad’s name and created a new account under Mom’s name. The amount due under Dad’s account must be paid in full now, which explains the increase in the bill. I call the company and confirm, yes, this is the standard procedure when someone dies. So, everything is okay and Mom isn’t been charged more money, she’s just having to pay for additional days of service this time around.
I call her back and she’s relieved. I’ve solved her problem, calmed her down, and let her get back to her day of watching TV.
I, on the other hand, am not calm.
My blood pressure is still high. I’m stressed. I can’t get back into the mindset of doing yoga, even though I know it will make me feel better.
I’m so mad. She wasn’t supposed to fall apart like this. Her last years were supposed to be good. She was energetic and happy and engaged in the world before my dad died. Now, she’s none of those things.
It used to be that she wore me out during the day because I couldn’t keep up. Now she wears me out because taking care of her is exhausting.
If she got up and moved more. If she stopped watching so much fucking television. If she actually tried to take care of herself, I wouldn’t feel this way and she’d be doing a whole lot better. If she went out and met people, she’d be doing better. If she started going to church or got involved with a local nonprofit, she’d be doing better. There are so many things that she could be doing at age (almost) 75 that would improve her quality of life.
Instead, she sits in her chair, watches TV, and calls me in a panic anytime something is slightly off in her small world.
I’m exhausted.
She lives 1000 miles away and we can’t figure out how to get her to Montana to be closer to us. She’s not ready to be here. Maybe if we were to start a family, that would impact her motivation. To be transparent, one of the reasons my husband went and got a job is to help us have more options when it comes to her care. We’re not ready to make any changes yet, but at least we have more resources now to make those changes when it’s time.
I get so worked up after these calls with Mom; after I have to step into the role of the adult for her. In the role of parent.
When did I become her parent?
The emotional labor of caring for her from a distance is exhausting. Building her up, encouraging her to go for a walk or get on her stationary bike, giving her things to look forward to, and handling the business of her life (like the energy bill) - it takes so much energy. Especially because nothing seems to really change.
Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a pattern with her. She falls apart - starts falling more for example. We/I come for a visit and help her get things back in shape. We go for walks. I do a long list of chores, things that she needs to be taken care of around the house, or shopping that she’s held off on in anticipation of my visit. She is more active. She eats better. She’s a completely different person by the time we leave. And she’s good for two or three months before she starts falling apart again. So, we come back and start the recovery process all over again.
It’s one more reason why it’s good to have the resources to visit more frequently. It’s keeping her steady for longer, I think. We’re holding the status quo better now, but the status quo isn’t great and it’s becoming clear to me that it never will be great again. Sure, we’ll have good moments and she’ll have good days, but her general existence has shifted dramatically in a relatively short amount of time.
And I’m angry about it. Clearly.
But here’s the other side to this. The paradox of it all.
I’m so glad I can care for her.
Our society doesn’t value caregiving or caregivers. If it did, childcare would be accessible, affordable, and everywhere and the people who cared for the kids would be paid well above a living wage. If our society valued caregiving, there would be structures in place that helped families like mine care for our family members as they aged. Eldercare would be just as accessible, affordable, and prevalent as the ideal childcare would be.
Instead, we’re taught from birth that we are on our own. That the individual matters more than anything else, and it is only as an individual that we can achieve anything. Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, they tell us. That’s the only right way to succeed.
It’s self-care, not community care that we hear most about. The individual. Me, myself, I.
You are secondary. Whoever you may be.
I’m in the prime of my life (so they also say). I’m supposed to be striving in a career, making more money each year, building wealth, and doing everything I can, on my own, to achieve success.
As a woman, I’m also supposed to already have kids, raising the next generation of workers so that they grow up to be productive members of society.
And when I grow old, I’m supposed to have earned enough to not need to rely on anyone, my family, my kids, or even my entitlements now, to take care of myself. I’m supposed to earn enough and save enough that when I’m 75 years old and falling apart, I won’t need to ask anyone for help because I’ll have everything I need by then to live my last days in comfort and ease.
What complete bullshit.
Here’s the thing, I want to care for my mom. I love that I can help her. I don’t want her to feel guilty for calling me and asking for help. I want her to know that I’m always going to try to help her figure something out. It makes me feel good. It makes me like I am doing something important. Taking care of my mom in her remaining years is a gift. I have the resources to be able to do it.
There are days, like this one as I write, where the rugged individualism that was ingrained in me from birth gets ahold of my emotions and I feel resentful of having to do things for my mom. Where I feel anger towards her for not being able to make a phone call on her own. When I’m annoyed that my flow has been disrupted by her. That I can’t set better boundaries with her because if I try, she’s going to take it personally and stop calling me. Stop talking to me.
On days like this, the one thing that eventually calms me down is remembering my values around caregiving. It is a joy for me to care for her, even though it’s really hard. It’s a complicated situation with complex emotions and all of them are valid. There are a lot of nuances here, and our society doesn’t treat nuance well.
By remembering my values, I ground myself. I can help her solve problems. Making her smile and laugh is something I try to do as often as I can. Bringing her joy is important to me. When I visited her in late February, I got to give her new experiences, like going to a winery and eating new cuisines.
Most of us aren’t taught how to be in a community with one another. Or rather, white Americans aren’t taught how to be in a community with one another. While women are expected to be the default caregivers, we’re taught to do it as individuals, not as a community or collectively. I feel very isolated as a woman caring for my aging mom from a distance, and yet I know I’m not the only one in this situation.
But, we don’t talk about it. It would be seen as complaining or being ungrateful or any other negative connotation. That’s also the paradox of caregiving - as women, we’re supposed to be the caregivers almost exclusively, and yet we’re always supposed to be happy and grateful about it too. It’s our only job, along with everything else we’re supposed to be doing.
When someone asks me how my mom is doing, I don’t really know what to say. How do I explain the complexity and smallness of her life without making them feel sorry for her or me? I’m not looking for sympathy.
What I’m looking for is understanding. An acknowledgment that it’s really difficult to reverse roles with the people who raised you. A place where we can be honest about the good and bad of the situation. A conversation that centers on the paradox of caregiving - that it’s both a challenge and a joy.
Because the sooner we can start acknowledging the complexities of caregiving, maybe we can all start helping one another a little more. Maybe we can start shifting our thoughts to community care, to collective support.
I’m not good at asking for help. I don’t even know how to ask for help most of the time. Writing this, I don’t even know if I’m trying to ask for help.
I guess what I’m asking is this - if you’ve ever been a caregiver for a parent or older family member, what is/was it like? What challenges and joys did/do you have? What did you learn about yourself? What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your caregiver journey? And if you’ve not experienced this, do you think you will? What do you worry about most? What are you not concerned about?
I ask these questions because I want to do this together. I don’t want to be isolated anymore. Feeling or being isolated leads us down the path of burnout, whether it’s at work, at home, or from our community.
Your thoughts on any of this are welcome and, frankly, needed. I don’t want to do this on my own anymore. I can’t do this on my own anymore.
None of us can.
P.S. I’ve talked with my mom about a lot, but not all, of these feelings. It’s hard to have an honest conversation with her about all of this, but I am trying and it does help each time we talk. It’s easier to have these conversations in person, which means they only happen every few months. Another question to consider - are you having discussions with your older family members about their caregiving, either now or in the future? How do they respond to the conversation?