by Katrina L. Spencer
Katrina L. Spencer began writing for Vinegar Hill Magazine in 2022 when she lived in Charlottesville. She left Virginia to pursue a master’s degree in journalism and media. Having completed her program, she now resides in Austin, Texas, and recruits freelancers to contribute to the publication.
When her father’s legs gave out, causing him to fall and wedge himself into a bathtub, Shené V. Owens and her family began to seriously suspect something was neurologically wrong. He’d spent 28 years, active and mobile, as a courier for FedEx. But in retirement, following 3 surgeries, care for his body became more complex. A week after the fall, he couldn’t walk at all.
Owens, 39, lives in Richmond, Virginia, and commutes for work in higher education to Charlottesville. Outside of work, she helps to manage her father’s care. When it comes to doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, she stays in close communication with her father’s team.
“It is not a responsibility that I want, but it is a responsibility I have accepted,” Owens said.
Owens represents the 10% of American adults in the U.S. who are caring for a parent aged 65 or older, according to the Pew Research Center. And the number of people caring for their parents is projected to grow, according to researchers publishing with the National Library of Medicine.
With continued advances in medicine and technology, people are living longer, and the period for which they need geriatric healthcare is lasting longer, too. That is, while people have gained more years on Earth, the extension of their latter years are often marked by chronic health conditions. Extended lifespans do not promise seniors their independence or a superior quality of life.
As adult children navigate the terrain of caregiving, they urge others to have conversations surrounding care plans early; anticipate the need to access elders’ assets and resources for sorting finances; and seek support in assuming a new and life-changing role.
“There is nothing that prepares families for this,” Morgan Whittaker said.
Whittaker, 35, is the chief compliance and ethics officer at Candor Therapy Network in Richmond, Virginia, and has a background in both social work and psychology. She is also her father’s caregiver. At work, she makes sure insurance providers pay for healthcare services that patients need and are entitled to. Her knowledge of the caregiving role is intimate, clinical and legal all at once.
“Families should discuss roles, responsibilities and expectations in advance to ensure well coordinated and effective elder care,” she said.
Managing logistics for organizing care is one part of the challenge. Maintaining one’s mental health is another, and many are in need of support.
People can experience adjustment disorder, persistent depression and burnout response in assuming caregiving roles, she said.
“You have the right to ask for help,” Whittaker said.
One of her main priorities is in assisting caregivers to develop plans designed around their longevity, she said, plans that allow them to thrive. She emphasized the importance of asking parents what they want for themselves as they age while they still have the capacity to answer.
Whittaker recommends that caregivers pursue a medical power of attorney (MPOA), which allows a trusted person to make medical decisions; a durable power of attorney (DPOA), which allows financial decisions to be made by proxy; and a password sharing plan for financial accounts.
Finances, after all, prove to be a critical part of the caregiving discussion.
Residency in assisted living facilities, for example, average about $6,000 in costs monthly in Virginia, according to A Place For Mom, a website used to find housing of this kind. Costs like these can be prohibitive for many, and qualifying for financial assistance can require elders’ savings and assets to first be liquidated and spent.
This was the route Shé Langley took to ensure her mother, Sonya Davis, had access to the services, housing and care she needed before she was moved into hospice care where she now resides.
“People don’t understand how expensive care is,” Langley said. “Had my mom not been approved for Medicare, there is zero possibility she would be able to afford care in a facility.”
Langley, 42, is a mother, a wife and digital marketer living in Newport News, Virginia. Her mother, 75, was once an English teacher with perfect penmanship, Langley said. She now has dementia and Parkinson’s disease and is unable to write.
Between managing her own business and raising her 9- and 11-year-olds with her husband, Langley visits her mother once a week, bringing her mother’s favorites, pumpkin loaf from Starbucks and apple pie from McDonald’s, in tow. Langley navigated sentiments of guilt, she said, when she realized visiting her mother more often was unsustainable.
“It’s changed the way I see the world,” Langley said. “I wouldn’t want it for anyone.”
Managing the care and demands of both seniors and juniors within her family makes Langley part of the “sandwich generation” or the swath of Americans who often work and care for both parents and children. More than half of Americans in their 40s belong to this group and divide resources of time, money and energy amongst youth and elders, according to Pew Research.
Langley said she was thankful to have discussed her mother’s wishes with her before her mother’s health and cognition were in serious decline.
“Don’t be afraid to have those conversations early,” Langley said.
She also follows creators on social media who are also caregivers who can provide a sense of support, humor, resonance and community, including @momofmymom and @iamgertrudejordan on Instagram, and a group called When Career & Caregiving Collide on Facebook.
Caregivers’ duties are not limited to health and finances. They also often maintain the domestic realm, run errands and learn skills they may not have anticipated as well.
Martha Ruff, 73, for example, is a retired librarian living in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a senior citizen, and her mother, Edna Ruff, is a centenarian, aged 103. While her mother’s mind is still sharp, she said, her hearing is diminishing, as has her sight. She cannot stand for very long anymore, uses a wheelchair and a walker and her recall of names isn’t as fast as she’d like it to be, Martha said.
“She is very often trying to figure out how she can not be a burden,” Martha said.
Martha is one of five siblings and said her home, given its lack of stairs and her mother’s mobility issues, seemed to be the logical choice when the decision was made that her mother would be housed with one of them. Edna Ruff moved in circa 2012.
“There were medical things I had to suddenly learn,” Martha said.
Martha takes her mother’s blood pressure regularly, manages her medications and interfaces with various types of medical professionals and systems. She transports her mother to and from church and her appointments and is also her mother’s companion on trips as Edna Ruff maintains an active travel itinerary locally and across state lines.
As a former psychiatric nurse, Edna Ruff still draws a pension, which helps to finance the paid caregiver that visits her at home, 3 days a week, 4 hours a day. And Martha’s siblings call weekly to speak with their mother at set times. This network of resources, support and routines allows Martha to care for personal and household needs when necessary.
With over 10 years of experience in a caregiving role, she is a veteran, and the advice she offers coincides with other caregivers’.
“Have a conversation with your parents before they need it,” Martha said.
With the population of septuagenarians and octogenarians expected to triple in the United States by 2060, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the need to normalize conversations about one’s latter years will likely become even more salient.
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A warm thank you goes out to those who helped with and inspired the research for this article:
Charlottesville-based certified nursing assistant and caregiver Shenise Gray is the CEO of Peace of Mind Helpers, LLC, a business of careworkers who provide services to the elderly.
The Jefferson Area Board for Aging (JABA) in Central Virginia offers a variety of services and programming for the benefit of the elderly and their caregivers.
Chicago-based comedian Arlieta Hall will release a documentary, Finding Your Laughter, covering how she cares for her father, including the use of improvisation, an acting tool, to manage his lapses of memory. She has been paid in the past to be a caregiver for her father and encourages caregivers to explore this option.