caregiving

I resent my family. My dad got seriously chronically ill, and everything changed. My siblings basically have done nothing to help.

Whether you are caretaking for an aging parent, a spouse, a sibling or a child — there are more similarities than there are differences.

Mom’s aging, my schedule, my son’s cooking (my cooking!), our health, our lives — and the list unfurls like a dropped ball of yarn, rolling out of reach.

Despite our dependence on caregiving to grow and function as a society, compensation for this labor remains unfairly low. Another factor is the “motherhood penalty”: Women with children earn less than women without kids. On the flip side, fathers get a “daddy bonus,” earning more than men without children. When women move out of the workforce to raise a family, it impacts their lifetime earnings.