The latest care work stories
Confession
On feeling guilty for not being able to do the impossible: On one hand it seems like we did all we could but on the other hand, it feels like giving up. I remember feeling like we worked hard, like we gave it a valiant effort. But we didn’t have what we needed so we...
‘Hospital-at-home’ trend means family members must be caregivers — ready or not
Hospital-at-home programs are for people sick enough to need the attention a hospital provides, but stable enough to be cared for at home. Research on outcomes is not conclusive, yet, but shows promise that it can provide good care and save health care dollars. But a...
Desperate Families Search for Affordable Home Care
It’s a good day when Frank Lee, a retired chef, can slip out to the hardware store, fairly confident that his wife, Robin, is in the hands of reliable help. He spends nearly every hour of every day anxiously overseeing her care at their home on the Isle of Palms, a...
LIHTC for Regular People
LIHTC, often pronounced “lie-tech,” stands for Low Income Housing Tax Credit. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit is a program of the U.S. Treasury. It reduces federal income taxes for 10 years in exchange for making an investment in an affordable housing development,...
Facing my wife’s dementia: Should I fly off to see our grandkids without her?
I was so worried: How would Marsha be without my daily visits? What if she became depressed and agitated during my absence? Would she somehow think I'd abandoned her? Marsha's nurse practitioner and the staff at the house where she lives all told me to go – that I...
When the Neighbors Are All Older, Too
Though surveys repeatedly show that most older people prefer to remain in their own homes as they age, about 800,000 were in assisted living last year, according to LeadingAge, which represents nonprofit aging services providers. An additional 745,000 lived in...
Cleaning Instructions
I can’t. I can’t do this anymore, I say to myself, my mantra, my cantra, the same thing I said when he first needed a wheelchair, when he first became incontinent. When we married, I was thirty-six and Jerry, a vital, seemingly healthy fifty-two. Before our first...
How to pay off your emotional debt
We are able to buffer intensely stressful experiences by repressing our emotions in the moment (sometimes subconsciously). We save “feeling our feelings” for a later point when we’re more equipped to deal with them. But if we never unpack what’s there, we can...
How to talk to a loved one about their health
To tactfully broach conversations about a loved one’s physical and mental health, experts recommend affirming their autonomy, validating their hesitancy with the health care system, and avoiding shame and blame. While we can’t change others’ behavior, we can encourage...
Top Articles & Resources
Become a paid family caregiver in Canada
Become a paid family caregiver in the US
Compassion fatigue
Anticipatory grief
Caring for an abusive parent
When you’re at a breaking point
Dating as a family caregiver
Dealing with anger
Finding someone to talk to
Don't see what you're looking for? Search the library
Common terms for caregiving
The actions: caretaking, care work, assisting, ADL support, direct care, care management, care coordination, care navigation
The person providing support: carer, care partner, aide, personal care assistant, home health aide (HHA), care coordinator, care navigator, case manager, care custodian, foster parent, foster caregiver, guardian, one-to-one, homemaker, live-in, care manager, nurse aide, care planner, private duty nurse, nanny to a disabled child, elder nanny, care companion, special needs parent, disability mom, disability dad, domestic helper, domestic, housekeeper, mother’s helper, family caregiver, paid caregiver, designated caregiver, partner in care
The people providing support: care team, web of care, care web, concierge, care train
The person receiving support: care recipient, caree, loved one (LO), ill spouse (IS), ward, dependent, elder, homebound, patient, client
Submit a story
If you’d like to share an original piece of writing (or a work that’s previously been published that you have permission to re-publish here) you can submit that through our contact form as well, after you’ve read our author guidelines.
I’m dealing with
Finances
Housing
Planning
Work
Burnout
Relationships
Dying
Grief
After Caregiving
I'm caring for my
I am part of
Don’t see what you’re looking for? Search the library
The thing is, everyone is talking about caregiving. They just don’t use the term “caregiving.” They talk about cancer, dementia, MS, cerebral palsy, and the frailty that sometimes accompanies aging.
They talk about being overwhelmed, stressed out, burnt out, and pulled in a dozen directions at once.
Stereotypes around who provides care leaves young people, queer people, men and masculine people, polyamorous and non-traditional families, and many others feeling like they don’t count as caregivers and don’t qualify for support. People who provide care during flares or as respite, who help a primary caregiver, who coordinate care from a distance, who manage the paperwork without providing hands-on care, are often overlooked. Their stories get lost, especially since they rarely use the term “caregiver.”
There are so many different terms used to describe caregiving and caregiving is itself an umbrella term to describe many different things. Many people who provide care don’t identify what they do with a specific label, outside of their role as a partner, friend, or other relationship. All of this can make it difficult to know who counts as a “real” caregiver.
Outside of discussing support provided by one person to another, caregiving is a term used to refer to very different things by the cannabis industry, the fetish community, and property maintenance. In psychology, “caregiver” and “caretaker” are used to label different relationship dynamics.
All of this makes it incredibly difficult to find resources that are relevant to your situation and to connect with people who’ve experienced similar circumstances. That’s why this database exists.
We curate resources our community has found insightful, powerful, and helpful. These are categorized based on the situation they discuss, type of care provided, characteristics of author, and relationship between care provider and recipient. Stories are also tagged with terms, like the disease or condition, so you can easily locate articles that relate to your life.
If supporting someone else’s physical or mental health is a big part of your life,
we recognize you and we welcome you into our community.
Join our newsletter
Thoughts on care work from Cori, our director, that hit your inbox each Monday morning (more-or-less).
This isn't a roundup of articles; this is what's on her mind after deep discussions with a wide array of care workers, participating in communities of mutual aid, reactions to mainstream and academic publications, and personal reflections—from the profound to the profane.
We go way beyond tips and tricks. We're imagining a different world, based on what care workers are already living.
There are no grand solutions, but there are countless little ways to make our lives better.
By signing up for the newsletter, you're consenting to get email newsletters from us using a tool called Substack.
We don't sell or share our list with anyone.
This is a space for everyone who provides care, no matter who you are or where you are in your caregiving journey
