Leslie Kaufman had an interesting article about caregivers in the New York Times last week. It explored the special care that a caregiver who is related to her charge can provide. According to one such caregiver, Tracy Keil, she* can help her charges who don’t want “just a baby sitter” to live as they would like to live, to “get out and about, go grocery shopping or see a movie.”
Mrs. Keil quit her lucrative accountant job to stay home, and she wants to be “compensated” for what is now her “full-time job” of caregiving. “She sees it not only as a battle about income but also about dignity and respect.” She’s never regretted leaving her paying job, she enjoys her new role, and she’s confident in her competence, but she worries about the financial repercussions of working for nothing.
There’s a growing group of caregivers who are lobbying to not be taken advantage of anymore. Advocates for these caregivers suspect that the government does not pay them (so far) because “they know they would do the work anyway.”
Have you guessed who the charges are?
All of the issues in the article could apply to a stay-at-home mom caring for her kids, but instead it’s about soldiers who come home from war in need of full-time care. In many cases the health aides paid for by the government provide unacceptable care, so many wives of soldiers have quit their jobs to care for their loved ones themselves.
I don’t want to make light of the atrocities of war that render grown men and women in need of full-time caregivers. And, of course, the least we could do as a grateful nation is facilitate our veterans’ return to living to their full capacity.
But.
How come we don’t talk about mother-caregivers in similar terms? I’m not saying I’d like the government to pay me for being a mother, though I do find it appealing when Nora Roberts has characters choosing to accept the “professional mother stipend” in her futuristic Eve Dallas crime books.
I’ve pointed out before that the Child Care Tax Credit is unfairly preferential to working mothers (and fathers) who pay non-relatives to care for children.
Why doesn’t anyone talk about “compensating” (or at least not punishing in the tax code) mother-caregivers? After all, it’s not just a matter of income, but of “dignity and respect.”
Also, why weren’t there protests about this betrayal of feminist ideology — this suggestion that people are happier when cared for by a relative rather than a paid aide or in an institutionalized setting? Shouldn’t someone warn these women of all they are giving up and how they are setting feminism back by settling for a mere caregiver role?
*I’m not saying a man can’t be a caregiver, but all of the examples in this article were female.
Tags: caregivers, motherhood, mothers, parenting, stay-at-home mom, veterans
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I have to say…
In most European countries they DO PAY you to be a mom. It’s kind of awesome. Sure, they have the tax rates to show for it, but a big part of me thinks it would be worth it. For example, if I could just convince my husband to move back to Spain with me, I’d be paid for a couple years post maternity. If you have more than 3 children it’s considered a ‘large’ family and you qualify for all kinds of deals on real estate, food, and other expenses. If you decide you want to go back to work, it’s paid child care and free preschool.
It’s interesting that our feminist movement went in such a different direction than the European movement. There it was about celebrating women and empowering their special roles–hence the maternity support and early childhood help. Here it was more about parity and I think we may have suffered in the long run for it.
Very interesting topic.
I love you. Thank you for saying this in a far more concise fashion then I could ever have said it. Amen sister!!
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I just don’t see how people can expect so much from the government. Why should they pay us to take care of our families? That’s ridiculous.
The problem with being paid by the government to take care of family members is that there will likely be government rules and regulations about that money and the care extended–in other words, we give permission to the government to interfere in what are typically private family matters. Personally I think women need to learn to recognize the value of what they do in a currency that is not based on dollar figures. Motherhood is a very rewarding career choice in its own unique way.
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if the government offered to pay me for what i do i would refuse it. when you let the government get involved you give them permission to run your family. there would be some sort of social agency that would regulate us, telling us how to discipline our kids, how to educate them, when to put them to bed, what to give them for christmas, etc. etc. no thank you.
I usually think about this issue as it relates to my mother-in-law who has been caring for her 34-year-old handicapped daughter for 34 years. The government would pay many thousands of dollars a month for her care if she were to be instutionalized, but only pays a meager social security payment of a few hundred dollars since she is at home. I would expect that if the government would pay a little more generously a lot more people could keep thier disabled loved ones at home, giving them better care and saving the government money. I have never thought about the same argument for nondisabled children. Maybe because you rarely hear (except maybe in Nebraska) about parents turning their children over to foster care because they can’t afford to stay home with them. Interesting argument anyway. Thanks for giving me something to think about.
Ditto to Memarie Lane, although it would be so hard to care for somebody disabled. I’m sure I would appreciate money from wherever if I had so many medical bills and was struggling to take care of somebody in my famiy. So I guess ideally I don’t believe in government money to help out the families, but I don’t know what I’d do in an extreme situation.
Azucar — I think we’ve done terribly at parity (witness the Child Care Tax Credit), and I don’t see how free child care leads to “celebrating women and empowering their special roles.” I would think paying women to care for their own children (if that were their choice) would be more likely to give respect to that role.
Stacy — Yes, it seems ridiculous to conservative Libertarian types. In the article, it was talking about people who are so disabled that they need care to do things like going to the bathroom and eating (So, someone HAS to care for them, and the govt will pay for a non-relative person (usually a CNA?) to do these things bec. the injuries were incurred on the battlefield, etc).
Which again applies to young children (they need help w/ potty, eating, etc). I just thought it was fascinating that this whole article never acknowledged how similar this caregiver plight/joy/recompense issue is to sahm’s.
Rebecca — I agree that motherhood is rewarding in its own way. I don’t know if I consider it a “career choice.” Maybe I should. But I do dislike IMMENSELY the Child Care Tax Credit not being applicable to a relative caring for kids.
Memarie Lane — Good points — the article discussed these exact things as they relate to soldier’s families caring for them — that the relatives would need certification, etc.
Andrea — This is an excellent point. At the end of the article, it talked about a soldier whose institutionalized care costs the gov’t 25k a month. Before he went into respite care, the gov’t paid a 3500/month pension. The care was overwhelming to his wife, who couldn’t hire help on the 3500/month, so now the gov’t pays seven times as much for care that cannot be as ameliorative to the man.
Everybody (in the WHOLE WORLD
No one responded to my last paragraph. WHY?
(Haven’t read the linked article, I’m enjoying it enough catching up on like a week of your blog posts in ONE HIT.)
Yes, I agree that full-time caregiving to a disabled or injured relative is remarkably like a SAHM.
I wonder if the idea of caring for relatives who have become injured in war somehow feeds into some of the heightened feelings of patriotism that seem to have occurred since Sept. 11? And mother-caregivers don’t fall into the same “serving your country” category? Although mother-caregivers are certainly building the future generations of a country.
I’m not saying that patriotism is a bad thing, and my sense of “heightened” patriotism is based on my mere observances as a visitor to the US every year or two since 1996.
Oh, and seeing as I’m coming in after your comment Jane, my DH wants to be a SAHD. I’ve heard of SAHDs before, but haven’t seen one yet.
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I must not have explained myself: you are compensated with maternity leave and extended maternity leave (going into the years per child.) You don’t have to return to work, they just subsidize child care if you decide to go back to work. Preschool is free no matter what.
And there are no government agencies telling you how to raise your children, or discipline them, or any of the other fears your other readers have posted.
Women in the US pay an incredible price to care for their children (and by extension, primary care giver in any capacity.) They pay in reduced compensation should they return to the workforce, they pay in the lesser amount of social security and fewer retirement savings, higher chance of living in poverty if anything should happen to a male breadwinner. Most of us say it’s worth it, for our kids. It’s something we happily give up. You’re right, it’s because we’ll do it anyway.
However, in other countries, that’s not the case. Women don’t have to give up financial/socio-economic stability to have children, or care for incapacitated loved ones.
For a country that’s supposedly pro-child, pro-family, we do surprisingly little to back it up. It’s utterly SHOCKING to me that we put up with it. I mean honestly, the very idea of an unpaid 6 week maternity leave is completely disgusting–let alone the ‘gift’ of only 12 weeks unpaid leave to care for a family member.
We ought to do better.
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