Just a few months ago, I wrote about how lucky I felt. My husband is a firefighter with long shifts (and overtime), and I'm a morning radio personality who wakes up hours before the sun rises. Though our work schedules can be difficult, we have a village that includes both my mother and my in-laws, and not only are they close by, but they're also dependable.
After a run-in with a new coworker at the laundromat, Cass (Asia Kate Dillon) has a drunken hookup with Kalli (Louisa Krause). Kalli seems to take an immediate trusting to Cass, and after Cass tells her their side-gig is nannying, Kalli asks if they can watch her daughter Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman) while she goes out of town for work.
In the future, a caregiving machine might gently lift an elderly person out of bed in the morning and help them get dressed. A cleaning bot could trundle through a child's room, picking up scattered objects, depositing toys on shelves and tucking away dirty laundry. And in a factory, mechanical hands may assemble a next-generation smartphone from its first fragile component to the finishing touch.
I've been in a caretaking role for most of my life. We lost my dad when I was 11, and my mom had a stroke soon after. As the only girl in a Latino immigrant family, I grew up carrying responsibility early. That early experience of taking care of my family members, coupled with my take-charge personality, has shaped every stage of my life, including my decision not to have children.
I was so panicked by the grief I might experience if my loved one died that it prevented me from giving my loved one what I needed [to]," says Lambert, 54, who lives in London. That was back in 2017. Over time, through trial and error, Lambert says, she learned she had to put her own feelings aside in the moment and focus on the person in front of her.
My husband, Francisco - known as Pako - has always been professional, kind, and considerate to everyone. However, in the fall of 2020, I began to notice changes in his behavior, including skipping meals, struggling to find the right words in conversation, and difficulties managing his finances. I called him the human calculator because he had been in charge of our income and outgoings from before we got married in 2010, but all of a sudden, he would buy strange things.
Mom worked for almost two decades after her divorce, but could not financially make up for the years she spent as a housewife. The low-paying jobs she had while married - cleaner, waitress, and such - counteracted her higher income as an administrative assistant. She ended up grossing $575.00 a month from social security, despite the fact that she could have drawn against my father's social security allotment for more than double that amount.
I sat with what they told me for a moment. I recalled how I felt when my dad called me with the news that his thigh pain was from a tumor that had spread from a mass in his lung. I remembered how much I wanted someone to tell me it would be OK, that we would all survive this, that the world, now horrifyingly askew, would somehow right itself.
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I am an only child. My father was killed in a car accident when I was 14 and my mother was 47. We were really tightly bonded after that. She worked at a university and was an artist: she painted and carved birds. She was a wonderful person, who lit up a room and was someone everyone wanted to be around. She was very giving. Later in life, she developed dementia. I left my teaching position to stay home and look after her.
I told my goddaughter I would contribute $500 to the wedding dress. She picked out a dress without consulting me that cost nearly 10 times that much and sent me a picture of the receipts. She said she had heard that I would pay for all of the dress. Her mother got involved and it ended up a huge mess.
But you know what memory I don't have? My mother eating. She cooked. She served. She made sure everyone had seconds and thirds. She cleaned. She packed plates for folks to take home to their loved ones. She stood in that kitchen for hours (sometimes, days), making magic happen for anyone that she could. But I cannot recall a single moment when she sat down with a full plate of her own, enjoying the meal she had poured herself into.
Business Insider has spent a year reporting on the true cost of a cancer diagnosis for young Americans. Cancer cases are rising for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, derailing finances and future plans at a pivotal stage of life. Dozens of patients have told us they're navigating relationships, fertility decisions, early parenthood, and career growth alongside treatment. They're paying medical bills and for all the unexpected costs along the way.
She and I were best friends for the last 25 years. She's 55 and divorced, with a grown daughter but no man in her life. She's extremely lonely and has only us as emotional support. During the last year, she has had to move her 78-year-old mother (with whom she has a tumultuous relationship) in with her. Justine's daughter has distanced herself from her mother because Justine has erratic moods.
This can start with the question, How are you doing? Sometimes, people in care-giving positions really appreciate an outlet, or a chance to check in with themselves. And, at the other times, caregivers just want to have small talk, or a conversation about anything else. Part of this is between your wife and Beverly. If I were you, I'd resist the urge to tell your wife what to say or not say.
When I was pregnant, we moved to a new town, to a wreck of a house we planned to do up. My mum, who was ill, moved in with us, and then I was the carer of a newborn and a dying parent at the two extremes of life, but sharing many of the same needs, and often at the same time.
In my work as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I've supported thousands of people navigating trauma, loss, and mental health challenges. But nothing prepared me for the identity crisis that followed the deaths of three of my children, Johnny, Reggie, and Miah. Each loss shattered something in me, not just emotionally, but existentially. I didn't just lose my children; I lost my sense of self.
This is the same thing I think when people say they want to suppress an inappropriate crush: Give it up. It won't work. Just let yourself keep your feelings. They're not harming anyone. Instead, let's focus on your actions and making sure they're aligned with 1) being the kind of person you want to be, and 2) being strategic about setting your husband up to have some measure of peace when his mom is gone.
Often, these expectations are unspoken. A parent might have spent years believing you'd 'step in one day,' even if that was never discussed. When you finally say you can't, guilt and fear can flood in, but honesty is an act of love, too. There is no point offering something you cannot emotionally or financially afford, she added. So, try to stay clear-sighted and precise about what you're really able to offer - even if that doesn't feel like much.
Sometimes I wear fluffy cat ears and crawl under Zach's desk while he's writing his thesis. He'll stroke me and say, Do you like that? Do you need anything? It's a way for me to feel safe and turn off my brain for a little while. We live with Zach's grandparents as their carers, and once I forgot to take the ears off.
Village elders offered these powers-stillness and compassion-in lullabies hummed as they fastened tiny saddles, in laps that welcomed small bodies and soothed anxious hearts, and in gentle gazes that shimmered beneath the stars. Slowly, these two powers soaked in, one moment of care at a time, seeping into each child's bones and settling into their hearts. Before they even knew it, the village's children were walking hand in hand with stillness and compassion (Boyette & Hewlett, 2017; Doucleff, 2019).
Many of us are seeking ways to work from home these days. But if you're not that computer savvy, the typical work-from-home jobs, like customer support or virtual assisting, don't appeal much. The great news is that working from home doesn't necessarily have to be in front of a screen. If you're looking to tap into a new source of income that doesn't involve the stress of navigating new computer programs, here are a few ideas to consider.
This work has many names to me: mental load, emotional labor, logistical labor and, especially, narrative labor (the effort of constantly explaining myself, justifying choices, making life make sense for everyone else). It's the work that says, "I'll just do it; it's quicker." Or, "It's fine, I'll figure it out" Or, "No one else will remember, so I'll make a list."
