“What Do We Owe a Dying Parent? Notes from a Reluctant Caregiver,” by Ariel Gore for Psychology Today
My mother wore a coral sweater and matching nail polish the day she came to tell me she had stage 4 lung cancer.
I took a deep breath and exhaled.
In her usual and offensive communication style, my mother shook her head. “Pitifully, Ariel,” she sighed, “you’re all I have.”
I didn’t want to take care of my mother. But I knew I would.
I’d join 65 million other Americans—almost 30 percent of the U.S. population—who care for an ill, disabled, or aging friend or family member.
These “informal caregivers” offer an average of 20 hours a week in unpaid labor and more than $5,000 a year in out-of-pocket expenditures. These are our measurable contributions, anyway.
And the typical caregiver, it turns out, is me: A working woman with children of her own caring for her widowed mother.
We take care of our ailing parents for any number of reasons: Love, duty, necessity, or some combination.
To read the entire article go to Psychology Today.