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Imagine it’s your family reunion, and you’ve got 4 cousins who are caregivers. Abby and Bryan are paid. Cathy and Donnie are unpaid.
Abby cares for several clients of all ages. Brian cares for his elderly mom with a progressive cognitive disease. Cathy cares for her father who had a sudden accident. Donnie cares for his teenage son with autism.
Should you call them all “Caregivers”?
How about… “Caretakers”? “Mother Teresas”? “Just doing their job”?
Especially when the person being cared for has a physical or neurological disability, the scope of a family caregiver goes far beyond routine daily living activities like nourishment, hygiene, and medication. It’s their responsibility to manage the person’s person’s transportation, finances, and emotions.
Between mounting home maintenance, shopping on shorter store hours, and $5.00 gas price inflation; you’re responsible for the entire household ongoing. That’s your role now.
You used to be a spouse, child, or friend. Now you’re a cardiologist taking pulse rate at 8:00am and 6:00pm sharp. You’re a prosthetist mounting and dismounting on an artificial limb, day in and day out. You’re a lawyer advocating for their elderly rights across the health care system.
California Caregiver Resources Centers describes being a caregiver in broad terms:
“The term caregiver refers to anyone who provides physical, emotional, financial, or logistical support to someone with a disabling condition.
John Hopkins Medicine did a great job defining what a family caregiver is, in the context of elderly care: “A family caregiver can be someone caring for a spouse or parent, an extended family member, or even a friend or neighbor.”
It leaves the door open to all types of people who help out a person who needs caregiving.
A metaphor John Hopkins Medicine used to describe dynamics between the person giving care, the person receiving care, and a third-party support demonstrates the missing piece in most family caregiver’s lives:
“To understand the importance of a caregiver, think of health care as a three-legged stool. Family caregivers serve as one leg of the stool; professional caregivers (doctors, nurses, etc.) act as another; and the care recipient is the third leg. Without all three legs, health care cannot be as effective as it needs to be.”
Most of us are the “care-er” to a “care-ee” but don’t have outside support.
The family caregiver is a key factor. If the family caregiver doesn’t do their job, then the professional caregiver can’t do their jobs.
When any one of three legs of the stool collapses, the other two legs try to take over, but the stool goes off balance!
The weight must be evenly distributed to maintain balance.
“Care-ers” both paid and unpaid must work together to maintain balance. Or else the “Care-ee” will ultimately suffer.
The way Vocabulary.com describes it demonstrates a difference between the unpaid and the paid:
Someone who takes care of a very young, elderly, or ill person is called a caregiver. If you make sure your ailing friend eats every day and is relatively comfortable, you are her caregiver. Being a caregiver is sometimes a paying job — a home health aid and a nurse in a hospital both work as caregivers.”
A disgruntled caregiver on Quora may have said it even better!
I liked WordHippo.com too, because they divided it between “adult caregivers”, “child caregivers”, and “conceptual caregivers”:
- “A person who takes on the responsibility of looking after the sick or infirm”
- “A person taking care of a child or children”
- “A person who protects or defends something”
Plus, it gives us lots of synonyms and alternative words that you could choose to call yourself if you prefer not to call yourself a caregiver.
With so many nuanced differences in how the world uses the word “caregiver”, I’d leave it up to you to make the choice for yourself.
If you don’t like the way “caregiver” rolls off the tongue. Or you resent how thankless and neverending it feels?
You can call yourself whatever you want to.
In my opinion, “protector”, “hero”, “the only person taking responsibility for something that needs to be done” seem like accurate terms.
What you do doesn’t necessarily define who you are. Any way you want to describe it seems A-OK to me.
UPDATE October 3, 2023 - This post contained a screenshot from a third party website, but this screenshot is now removed to better comply with webmaster best practice.
