You don’t wake up one morning as a caregiver, and yet, after some time of making up schedules in your head and trying to squeeze in your dad’s doctor’s appointments in your day, it becomes obvious.
You’ve become one. And it’s changed your life for good.
Back when your parents were raising you, you probably expected to move out, live your own life, and if your parents got to the point where they couldn’t take care of themselves, they’d move into a care facility.
That’s what most people thought, so why are more and more families becoming caregivers?
Modern families have less support than ever, but they’re asked to do more.
And they say yes because… What’s the alternative?
Why Family Caregiving Is Becoming So Common
If you look at the numbers, you can see they are pretty dark.
About 63 million Americans (that’s about 1 in 4 adults) now provide unpaid care to a family member. That’s almost 20 million more compared to the last decade, which is an increase of a whopping 45%!
So, what’s behind these numbers? Why is this happening?
One of the reasons is that people are simply living longer now, which is a good thing. The problem is that living longer doesn’t necessarily mean living healthier, even with the medical advances we have today.
Out of all the adults living in the U.S., 75% of them are dealing with at least 1 chronic condition. When it comes to people who are aged 65 or higher, that number goes up to 93%. Diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and dementia don’t always require a person to stay in the hospital, but they all require help. Ongoing help, that is. There has to be someone who keeps an eye on medications, who schedules appointments, helps with hygiene, prepares meals, and so on. Someone has to do it, and that someone is increasingly becoming a family member.
Aside from longer lifespans, families look different nowadays.
People who were adults in the 1950s and 1960s usually had a lot of siblings, which is no longer the case for modern adults. Families are smaller now, so there aren’t as many people to take care of older relatives.
Also, approx. 29% of caregivers are part of the sandwich generation, which means that they’re raising kids AND taking care of their parents at the same time. And when you account for the fact that many adults don’t live in the same state as their parents, the situation gets even more complicated.
And then there’s the money. Because how could money not be part of this, right?
If you thought the numbers you’ve read so far are bad, get ready for truly brutal ones.
If you look at the national median cost for a private room in a nursing home, the price is now more than $129,000 (USD)a year. A semi-private room is up to $114,000, and assisted living communities are about $74,400 a year. Now, how can an average household with an income of roughly $80,000 per year afford these monstrous costs? They can’t.
And before you mention insurance, yes – long-term care insurance does exist, but it’s expensive and not many people have it. Medicare won’t cover most of these costs, and Medicaid is useless until the person has spent down almost all of their assets.
The only option here for so many families is that adult children become caregivers.
But let’s say you can afford long-term care for your parents. You’re still not done. You still have to visit (well, if you’re a decent person, you’d want to) your parents and stay in the loop on everything related to their care.
And speaking of care, let’s talk about the quality of care you get for those insane prices facilities charge. There’s no guarantee that it’ll be decent, let alone high. There are many scandals surrounding nursing homes and how they treat their residents.
The silver lining in that is that you don’t have to cross your arms and put up with it. You can always contact a lawyer if an incident should occur.
Each state has its own laws, but generally, abuse is never tolerated.
Here in New York, we have an extra statutory remedy through the Public Health Law to protect our seniors.
But if you take a Massachusetts nursing home neglect lawyer, they’d tell you that cases are usually built around negligence and laws on resident rights. The legal processes aren’t the same, either, but in any case, there are ways to protect your loved ones and hold institutions accountable.
Conclusion
Sadly, this increase in the number of family caregivers isn’t some trend that’s likely to pass soon. If anything, the numbers will keep getting higher because many families have no other choice. When you look at the reasons why that’s the case, it seems as though everything’s conspiring against them.
Caregiving is hard work, and it’s so much more than helping with groceries once in a while.
It’s a way of life, and unless it’s organized, caregiver burnout is almost guaranteed.
