"I'm not really a caregiver" stories

Everyone deserves care stories

Caregiving Resources

Care work is real work stories

Care Work Longreads

Care is a social justice issue stories

Care is intersectional stories

Global chain of care work stories

All relationships are interdependent stories

Mutual aid, not charity stories

The latest care work stories

Share your hard earned lessons and let your voice be heard. Here’s how.
You Shouldn’t Have to Take Care of Your Aging Parents on Your Own

You Shouldn’t Have to Take Care of Your Aging Parents on Your Own

"For most older Americans, care will come from unpaid family members or friends, who contributed around $600 billion worth of free labor to the economy in 2021, according to AARP. That care is not, of course, free for those providing it. Dwane Hodges is a 62-year-old...

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 submit a work or resource that we should know about, please let us know in our contact form. We share any resource that’s accessible online: poetry, short stories, visual arts, videos, podcasts, PDF downloads, articles, blog posts, academic resources, etc.

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 coping by

Journaling

Getting active

Eating healthy

Finding meaning

Finding support

Self care

Don’t see what you’re looking for? Search the library

It’s easy to get the impression that no one talks about caregiving, especially if you aren’t a “typical” caregiver.

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.

There are so many terms because it’s rare for any of them to fit quite right and many of them are problematic. They are often legal or technical designations that don’t reflect our personal experiences. Care relationships are rarely one directional. Many people providing care also have disabilities and chronic health conditions.

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 reflectionsfrom 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