“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
“Caregiver” is one of those words that rolls easily off the tongue, but there’s a good chance everyone’s definition is a little different. When I write the word, I know what I mean. When you read the word, you know what you mean.
Check out the USA Today/ABC News series “Role Reversal: Your Aging Parents and You” to get a taste of what all these different definitions can mean. Pay particular attention to the reader comments that accompany each article in the series. These are the voices and experiences of actual family caregivers. The joys, concerns, emotions and frustrations expressed in these comments are all part of a caregiver’s life.
If you are not yet an active family caregiver, the comments should convince you that all the talk about caregivers needing support is absolutely true. If you’re a caregiver now, you’ll find at least one reader story that will make you grateful to be in your own situation, whatever it may be.
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There are 3 Responses to “A Caregiver Through the Looking Glass”
#2 John A - 10 July, 12:04 PM
Thanks for the link. You are right, the reader comments are sobering.
I find your site to be uniquely positive, supportive, and realistic. It is obvious that you are concerned with the well-being of all of those involved in the challenging circumstances we call “caregiving.” I wish your recent posts on ‘tough calls’ and ‘promises’ had been available to my wife and I twelve years ago when we became my Mom’s primary caregiver!
(Thanks, also, for your comment on another blog about the insidious nature of pointing out bias. You are absolutely correct!)
#3 Pete - 10 July, 7:58 PM
Carol and John,
Thanks for your insights and kind words. Being a caregiver is the hardest work I have ever done. Even well-supported caregivers caring for their loved ones constantly run the risk of physical, emotional and spiritual exhaustion. There simply is no such thing as too much caregiver support!
#1 Carol D. O'Dell - 06 July, 7:52 PM
As a fellow caregiver, I thought about the “strangeness” of this word. If I may share, here’s a portion of my blog in which I talk about:
“Caregivers–Care Receivers.”
We’ve now turned the words “Care Giver” into a compound word.
Caregiver or caregiving (even though spell check doesn’t like it one bit) is now one word. Two words smeared together. Apropos. Two lives smeared together. I’d like to think of two lives as a Jackson Pollack–layer after layer of lives, history, forgiveness, memories.
I wrote in my book, MOTHERING MOTHER that I thought that caregiving was such a sterile term for something so natural. When the nurse’s wrote in my chart after my daughter was born that the “Mother has bonded well with her child.” I wanted to ask if someone should be post bail. Apparently we had bonded, hadn’t we?
We don’t call mothering, “infant care,” or child care. Child care is something someone else does–not mom or dad–that’s called being a family. I used to teach my daughters that family was an acronym for “Father and Mother, I Love You.” It sounded really sweet when they were four and five years old… Now they roll their eyes and give me a smirk. At least it’s a family smirk.
Now I have a new word–Care Receiver. It’s not yet a compound word. It’s a two-worder. It even looks funny as one word. Carereceiver. Care-receiver. Once again, sterile. I prefer, “Loved One.” I’d like to be referred to as the loved one–the one who is loved.
Giving and receiving are reciprocal terms. Full circle–you never know at any given moment who’s giving, who’s receiving. At any moment some tiny miracle may takes place. Someone smiles, laughs, tears, has a transcendent thought…or just sighs.
Carol D. O’Dell, author of Mothering Mother, available at Amazon
www.mothering-mother.com