The latest care work stories
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...
Facing Financial Ruin as Costs Soar for Elder Care
The prospect of dying broke looms as an imminent threat for the boomer generation, which vastly expanded the middle class and looked hopefully toward a comfortable retirement on the backbone of 401(k)s and pensions. Roughly 10,000 of them will turn 65 every day until...
The Only People Who Understand What a Caregiver Goes Through
“I remembered how absolutely terrified I was at the beginning,” said Susan Jewett, 76, who first proposed the mentoring idea to Penn Memory after her husband’s death in 2020. Her pitch: “Maybe I could be useful to someone who is earlier in the process.” Mentoring can...
The quiet rage of caregivers
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which calls caregivers the “backbone” of long-term home care in the United States, has warned that caregivers face many risks — anxiety and depression, chronic health conditions and financial strain, to name just a few....
Keep Calm and Don’t Unplug
"In facing a dearth of accessible, safe, and inclusive mental health support systems, many LGBTQ+ people have created our own. This has been true throughout the history of the human race, but the ubiquitous technology of the 21st century makes it easier to build...
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
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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
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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.
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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.
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This is a space for everyone who provides care, no matter who you are or where you are in your caregiving journey
