For the past two decades, my spouse and I have been the primary responsible parties for my mother-in-law’s care, everything from managing her finances and living arrangements to hiring help to support her, to doing a lot of that support, such as medication management, doctor appointments, making sure her living space is clean and she has enough food, and in her cases, bottles of Coke, in her fridge.
Over the years, we have moved to what is now a sustainable arrangement, in which she lives in a mother-in-law apartment connected to our house and she has a reliable helper to share the week-to-week personal care duties with us. My mother-in-law is one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, and she continues to add a lot of sweetness to my days and to our family. But like every other caregiving situation, my caregiving is also a real form of work, and sometimes a distracting one.
Four things I have learned about elder care:
· It is a constantly shifting situation. Elders' health needs change frequently, and new decisions often need to be made as people's needs increase.
· Like all other caregiving for people we love, it is a profoundly rewarding relational gift.
· It’s also a lot of work.
· It’s very easy to minimize and dismiss the mental and emotional load that can be involved with this work.
Looking beyond my own experience, to the bigger picture, here a few things that can help you think about how your own caregiving journey might intersect with your work situation, and therefore your overall well being.
If you do elder care:
You’re not alone—and you may be doing more than you think: Over 37 million Americans provide unpaid elder care (defined as care for people over 65 who “need help because of a condition of aging.” 59 percent of those caregivers are women. And “A little over one-fourth of eldercare providers engaged in unpaid eldercare on a given day, spending an average of 3.6 hours providing this care. (BLS)
It’s probably affecting you more than you know. A recent study in Harvard Business Review reported that 80% of employees said caregiving impacts their productivity.
Your employer may not know about your needs or the needs of other caregivers. In this same survey, only 24% of employers thought that caregiving impacted their employees’ productivity. And many employers do not keep track of caregiving and its impact on employees.
What can you do?
Start with awareness: Keep track of your daily tasks related to elder care:
· the time taken
· the mental load
· how many times you have to get in and out of a situation, enduring the “switching cost” of, say, a conversation with a nursing home in the middle of your workday, and the pivot back to the project you were working on.
Do some reflection:
· Has your situation shifted in recent months and years?
· Have certain health or emotional support needs of the elder in your life increased?
· Has the situation required more logistical management around medical advocacy, finances, or legal situations?
· Have family dynamics around the elder care situation become more intense?
· Is it occupying more of your brain and your time?
· How is it impacting your work?
Access Resources: I hope your employer is helpful! But regardless, there are many resources you can access to help you recognize and manage your elder care load on the homefront. Just a few examples here:
Your county's Aging and Disability Resource division
Get some support at work:
You might access any of the following:
Employee Resource Groups
Employee Assistance Programs
Caregiver support groups at work
Your supervisor or other mentor
Get real with someone you trust at work: If you’re lucky, you’ll have someone who can help you see and provide a plan for the current chapter you’re in on the elder care journey.
As a supervisor and a mentor for anyone I knew at work, and as a coach, I try to use my knowledge of caregiving to help people identify their situation. For example I might suggest, “It seems like this situation is becoming more intense and you might need some more help or a shift in your work arrangements to accommodate it for awhile.” This could mean:
· A customized FMLA arrangement
· A conversation with a supervisor about a temporary shift in work assignment
· A referral to support groups or some professional resources
Take some time seeking out the right support people: If you’re talking to your supervisor about this, you don’t have to share everything at once, or seek a solution immediately. You can feel out the situation, and see what level of awareness, education, empathy, and problem-solving might be possible with your supervisor. You may need to find other resources, but you’ll begin to practice having these self-advocacy conversations as connected to this chapter of your life situation.
Coaching is available: Beyond the resources at work or in the larger world, if you’d like coaching and mentoring to support you in these conversations, these are the kinds of career transition situations that I enjoy coaching people through, so feel free to reach out.
Next time: What Employers Can Do to Support Elder Caregivers
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