[Marlise Flores]

I’ve posted below the commentary from Lace on this article and also the links to this conversation in the Bistro and on facebook. Additionally, I have added a link to demographics on caregivers, including nonpaid caregivers. Do take the time to read through the statistics and find all the pivots to race.

As parents, we are in a complicated position. Often still caring for our children, we are watching as our parents move ever closer to needing care themselves. What steps are we taking to mitigate care of our own families being thrust on Black and brown caregivers for little to no pay? How are we taking action to bolster communities so that resources are available for families who cannot afford care centers? What are we teaching our children about disposability when power or resources can no longer be extracted from people?

COVID-19 is now adding potential for an large influx of younger generations due to long term effects. How are we preparing to address the increasing needs without dehumanizing or shuffling the responsibility to others?

Where is your clench? Where do you find yourself retreating and wanting to protect yourself and your own in this discussion?

https://www.caregiver.org/caregiver-statistics-demographics

From Lace:

This was so incredibly hard for me to read.

But I read every word.

My mother, despite my parents intentions to bring her home from the hospital, is back in the nursing home that gave are the virus.

I’m not angry at the nursing home, one of the better ones in San Diego County.

But the dynamics detailed in this article I am sure are also true for the nursing home where my mother is right now, still with covid-19, still not allowed to see her family, telephone calls are intermittent, and the chances are high that she will die alone in that facility.

But I cling to the fact that my mother is one of the lucky ones.

Her care is good there, but some of the things that are detailed in this article are also true.

Even with a higher minimum wage in California, direct contact nursing staff who are usually nursing aides, still make close to Poverty Level wages, which they offset by working in other nursing homes, or in home health.

If they were paid a fair wage, they would not be forced to make these sorts choices.

Add to that the lack of oversight, and Mom’s luck continues.

If she were in a bad nursing home there would be painfully little recourse.

As the article states, because of the trend in staying in place in the home, nursing home residents are usually sicker older and poorer.

My mother is two out of those three oh, and is particularly vulnerable.

I am doing my best to be philosophical about all of this; this was a shity time for mother to deteriorate and have the strokes that she had over the summer, it was doubly bad that because they placed her on dialysis that it was necessary for her to be in a nursing home in order to have that treatment fully three times a week.

The odds are high I will never see my mother face-to-face again.

And I am doing my utmost to try to process and come to terms with that.

What I can do and what I will do is to become an activist on behalf of not only my mother but also other nursing home residents.

Yes, it adds to an already full plate.

But I see it as an imperative.

We will have an entire generation of older Americans dying alone and sick, with their caregivers in head-to-toe protective gear so that sometimes you can’t even see their faces, an entire generation of children and grandchildren who will live with the pain that their parents and grandparents perished in ways unimaginable this time of year ago.

The article makes some really good suggestions to the Biden Administration as to how to make what is a bad situation at least marginally better, and to hold nursing homes and the corporations and hedge funds that own them more accountable than they currently are.

That’s a start. But it’s not nearly enough, and our task, might ask, is to do our best by them.

The article also reminded me of the appalling assertions of some, even some in the healthcare field itself, that the deaths in nursing homes in among older Americans was something of a blessing.

I mean after all they were going to die anyway, right?

I don’t think anyone would say that now, now that we know just how horrible deaths from the virus actually are, and how, for some, there is no such thing as a full recovery.

But the disturbing attitude that there were and are cohorts of people considered expendable still exists for some Talking Heads and policymakers.

If you’re old, if you’re poor, if you’re already sick, if you are black or brown, or, God help us, a combination of the above, yeah, it sucks, but better these vulnerable populations than Real Americans with value, right?

This needs to be fought with the same vigor and rigor as we fight white supremacy and the patriarchy.

We can do no less for this population Who Bore us and who held their grandchildren.

We owe them our absolute best.

Pre or post mortem.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/opinion/sunday/covid-nursing-homes.html?fbclid=IwAR3Z98QCLGc6KIjjXzN0dvBI8xcjiU3UEqHFbQJ-yQChaGeK6xfcIVM8Yes

https://laceonrace.com/groups/the-bistro/forum/discussion/this-is-why-nursing-homes-failed-so-badly-from-the-new-york-times/

https://web.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/719887815331695

Discussion

[Konstanze Weltersbach]

This is an important point to look at through the parenting / child lens, and I wonder why it’s so hard.

On the practical side, I am the child that lives farthest away from our parents, it’s easy to detach. My sisters both stayed in the same city basically, with the more caring, responsible and single one living just down the road from our mother. While my parents, both in their early 70s, are still both quite fit and all (and my father will be taken care of by his new family), we know it’s better to make plans.

I will have to talk to the sister closest to our mum, as she is implicitly the one expected to pick up the work – organizational and hands on – once our mother starts to need more assistance. There isn’t much money, so caring will involve a lot of balancing bills and budgets and therefore handing down the monetary restrictions to those who’ll care for her. I have to make sure that I will do more than conduct things from across the border and pay my share when it is time (I am often put into the role, and embrace the role a bit too much, of the reasonable, lightly detached mind). My sister will need support and holding and so will our mother.

As a parent, I/we talk a lot to our children about power, value, value assigned because of jobs, and I push them when I notice blossoming attitudes – and I am pushed by them. They are very perceptive about situations when I don’t live up to my own standards. But I don’t think I do much practical things besides stressing voting and involving them into my decision process as much as they are interested at their age.

[Emily Holzknecht]

You write about talking with your kids about power and value. We ended up watching the oldish musical movie Oliver! with our kids last night. There was so much to talk about with that with the kids in terms of framing that they could understand (elementary school kids). Who are the criminals? Is it the people that society’s laws say are criminals? Is an orphanage only an orphanage if it is legally sanctioned? Is the rich man who saves Oliver really so great if he does nothing to change the system that set Oliver out on the streets in the first place and that makes it necessary for boys to pick pockets? And so on

[Konstanze Weltersbach]

You are so right, conversation starters are everywhere. my kids sometimes shut me up (yes, mami, we know that’s sexist, but it’s fun to watch…) and I have to remind myself that most of the things i read/watch aren’t perfect either. I sometimes want to turn off my brain to just enjoy some fun, and have to give my kids some leniency as to where I shut up. It’s a fine balance, and always depends on what’s on, I guess? Like, I can decide to go with the sexism/patriarchy in romance novels (even though they are clear limits of what I can willfully ignore, and it’s a personal line and sometimes depends on my mood etc.), but can’t/shouldn’t decide to go with racism, transphobia, ableism and so on (when I notice it).

[Emily Holzknecht]

I have been anticipating the annoyance with talking about how various forms of entertainment is problematic. It hasn’t come yet though. I am thinking that when it does come, maybe it’s time to find or create a fun social opportunity like a club or something where a group of them can come together and really have a lot of fun, but come together for the purpose of examining media and other things from the North Star and taking action. There is an after school program that originated in our state that focuses on environmentalism like that, but it doesn’t include the North Star. I am concerned about how to find one or create one centered on racial justice and it ending up with all the problems of a white woman racial justice book club. I know good ones exist, and I know that some of them are not for my kids (radical brownies for example).

[Rhonda Freeman]

I am glad you brought Oliver! up. I have always wondered about Annie, myself. Whatever happened to those other orphan girls? More importantly, how do we talk to our kids about the capitalist society that we are all part of? I can’t justify why ‘work’ is set up in my industry so that when a contract ends a company simply lets people go and they have to find work elsewhere. I can’t justify that black and brown people are considered to have less monetary value than white people and old people have less monetary value than old people.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

Yes, we’ve found so much opportunity in media for conversation starters. I find one thing that helps is that instead of in the middle of the movie – as that does tend to both breed annoyance and confusion about what’s going on – it’s good to go back to the movie in conversations later on. There’s even a lot of media that doesn’t exactly seem deep, but can foster conversations about systems and who is a “good guy” and “bad guy.” That can then lead down the road to questions about who gets labeled a “good guy” in media, especially as relevant to their race.

[Marlise Flores]

Do you see that responsibility, lightly detached pattern showing up in other ways where your role could be more proactive in communal support and contribution?

[Konstanze Weltersbach]

Yes, I do. Some of it has to do with how I approach “the world”, some with budgeting my resources (my “spoons”, if it is appropriate to use this concept as a generally healthy person).

I go in all the way in areas where my role is clear – for example I’m figuring out how to be a good boss in a very new job in the middle of having to send some people to short-term work (aka less income). Finding emotional distance from this is hard, bad sleep and all.
Because this (in addition to all the immediate family stuff) is taking so much of my emotional resources, I am not as involved with community things as I maybe could. I let a volunteer thing run out when the project ended because of my time-limitations.

It boils back down to my issues with balance and the question of what’s reasonable, what’s excuses and what’s “self-exploitation” (dictionary word)

[Rebecca McClinton]

These are such great and important questions.

(1) What steps am I taking to mitigate care of my family/aging parent being thrust on Black and brown caregivers? I guess one thing that comes to mind is supporting my aging mother to be as independent and active for as long as she can. Knowing and looking into resources available ahead of time so I’m not taxing the system further being last minute also seems important, as does helping advocate for and stand along side caregivers and things they are fighting for and needing now (collecting signatures in my state for healthcare for all for eg) which will benefit them later as well, like Lace said her dad takes into consideration when he votes. I think also talking with my mom about racial justice topics exactly like these so as a consumer she will be aware and alert as can be and be an advocate herself.

(2) What am I doing to bolster my community so resources are available for families who cannot afford care centers? I financially engage with two local BIPOC run nonprofits that support and advocate for policy, and legislation change for people of color in my community. I want to continue to learn what other ways I can help these organizations.

(3) what am I teaching my children about disposability? I think bringing into daily conversation the impacts of decisions made (even the day to day ones) on people of color and who do not have power/resources is one important thing. I think kids in my home seeing me doing my own work is also important…sharing what I’m learning and rooting out in myself. I’ve heard it said that kids will do half of what you do well and double of what you do poorly. Probably just a cliche phrase, but it’s helpful to think about and helps me hold myself more accountable.

(4) How are we preparing to address the increasing needs without dehumanizing or shuffling the responsibility to others? Political advocacy is what first comes to my mind. Also not getting caught up in the current rush of the latest news, but having durability and reliability to see the issues already needing addressed to continue being addressed in addition to the new ones that rise.

(5) Where is my clench…where do I want to retreat and protect myself? seeing things as “get to’s” rather than “have to’s”…in relation to parenting, in relation to time and energy invested. Rather than freezing up and feeling overwhelmed, (clench) knowing that the one or two small things I can do in a day are things that very much matter rather than putting stock only in the bigger actions (wok). Trusting the process rather than jumping ahead and looking for finish lines.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Making that thought switch between “have to” and “get to” can make a big difference in how difficult work is!

[Emily Holzknecht]

I have commented in the Bistro and in the Millennials group. Those are public groups, so you can see my comments there as well.

What steps are we taking to mitigate care of our own families being thrust on Black and brown caregivers for little to no pay?

My parents are moving here in a couple years to live nearby. My mother has said she doesn’t want to ever live with me. They have been the caring for another adult relative for about 20 years and that person will be coming to live with my family.

I think that repairing any wounds in my relationship with my parents is important because any caregivers they do eventually need from Black and brown people are in danger of being sloshed on by my parents if we are not getting along.

The article lists national organizations that work on adult care-related issues including ways that would make things better for the care workers. I can learn about and support these organizations. I can put pressure on the federal government to do the things listed in the article that need to be done. The ones about wages and #hours per patient are particularly important.

If my parents are in a facility at some point, I can make sure that any frustration at the system is going to the right place and not sloshing on caregivers who are victims of the system.

My grandmother said more and more sexist and racist things as she deteriorated. When her mind was sharp, she knew better. I don’t know how to lessen that harm if discussions I have about race with my parents now get lost if their minds end up more in the past than in the present.

I can mitigate harm by treating staff with great honor and supplementing their wages.

How are we taking action to bolster communities so that resources are available for families who cannot afford care centers?

I saw a call go out months ago through a local organizer looking for a white person to pay reparations by committing to pay the utilities for an elderly Black couple as one might for ones own parents until they pass away or move into some other living situation like a home. I was not walking with LOR yet at that time and I did not financially engage. Aside from getting the government to take care of our elderly as it should, that sort of nearly direct financial engagement seems like a really good option. I am interested in what other people have to say about additional ways.

What are we teaching our children about disposability when power or resources can no longer be extracted from people?

A teacher of infant and toddlers once told me that she always has to argue with childcare licensing officials who want to write her up for having “broken toys” in the classroom. She explains that they keep the baby doll that is missing a leg on purpose because we don’t throw away people even if parts of their bodies work differently than they used to. So when one of our doll’s legs broke, we kept her too and talked about why with the children.

I am also thinking about all the families whose children I taught even a decade ago who still send me Christmas cards. I am not useful to them anymore, but they did not dispose of me.

When I was a child, I went to retirement homes semi-regularly. My great aunt worked at one and I would go with her to the poetry club. The seniors read their poems and I read them mine and of course they loved having a child there and hearing her poetry. I also went to another retirement home around the winter holidays to deliver Christmas crafts I had made for the seniors there and to perform Christmas songs for them on my flute. My children are getting old enough to do this now and my older child especially loves to perform. I don’t know where this is a possibility around here in non pandemic times. Being present while my children visit older people would also increase how visible adult care facility issues are to me which is important.

Similarly as a child my mom taught special ed summer school and I volunteered in her classes, so that was another way my mom was asking me to see othered people as not disposable, as worth my time. I was not there as a voyeur. I was there in service.

How are we preparing to address the increasing needs (such as of long-haulers) without dehumanizing or shuffling the responsibility to others?

The relative I mentioned above who is coming to live with me soon after being cared for by my parents for 20 years is a long-hauler from a different virus than the coronavirus. There are a lot of similarities between that person’s situation and what is likely in store for many who did not fully recover from covid-19. One of the reasons my partner and I chose the house that we did was because we were anticipating that relative living with us.

I am thinking now of ways in the past that we did and did not prepare for the aftermath of significant events, times when we did or did not throw people away. If I remember right, (white) widows from the Civil War got a pension the rest of their lives. (Please correct me if I’m remembering incorrectly.) That’s pretty different from what happened to soldiers from WWI who became hobos. Sure my grandma as a little girl had the job of feeding hobos at the back door, but while that is better than locking the door and calling the police, it is still dehumanizing and society was not really providing for them, valuing them.

Mostly I don’t know what is being done or what I should be doing to prepare for the increasing health needs of our population other than continuing to work for universal healthcare without punishment for preexisting conditions.

Where is your clench? Where do you find yourself retreating and wanting to protect yourself and your own in this discussion?

I think mostly with sorting out multitasking and capacity. “How can I possibly find time to figure all this out? How can I possibly find enough time to make a difference?” Everyone has some capacity though. And we all probably underestimate our capacity. White supremacy tells us we have to solve it all ourselves, that we alone are capable of knowing what’s best. But that’s a lie. I can’t solve it myself, and I can’t know what’s best alone. I can follow the North Star though. I can make sure I do the planning stage of the cycle of change, and I can come back and reevaluate and replan. I can keep walking here too.

[Marlise Flores]

Emily, I appreciate your pivot to recognizing conversations and relationships we need to maintain to prevent slosh from racism happening. Our family is our responsibility. We can roll our eyes at Thanksgiving or go no contact, but that doesn’t reduce harm to Black and brown people. It passes the problem onto them. We pass the problem on, perpetuating white supremacy.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

That’s an excellent point about how if we cut ties, that generally doesn’t make those people less racist. It just means that we no longer need to deal with them anymore.

[Leah Gallo]

My clench is pretty obvious. When you talk about mitigating care of our own families to be thrust on BIPOC with little pay, I immediately go to ‘well I need to save more so I can pay better.’ IE hoarding wealth and circumventing the system. But I don’t know what the answer is. Because when I divest freely, I don’t save, and then what? I then go to – I or my sisters will shoulder that responsibility because they are family. But I know that’s not even possible in some cases. That it’s too dangerous unless you are able to dedicate 24/7 care to someone. Which means hoarding wealth to be able to not have a job. The system is not designed to offer meaningful support to our elders and those who care for them. The answer lies in working to change the system. But that’s every system in America, every system is supremacist and classist, so my mind goes into overwhelm. I have to take it back to day by day and choice by choice.

To take it back a notch away from the extremes, there is absolutely an air of disposability about our elders in society. Even when not medically needed, we often foist care of our elders onto someone else. Or we see the whole swath of elderly that are outside of our immediate family as disposable. Through Covid I have seen this – back in March at the start of the pandemic here I was arguing with friends that even though the majority of casualties were 70 and up, it wasn’t ok to treat people like they were so disposable, but several of my friends were insistent it would be worse if it hit younger groups harder, and at least those people had had a chance to live their lives, and their deaths weren’t worth the halting of our economy. I had a real problem with treating the elderly like trash but I didn’t know how to better vocalize my feelings. I understand the sentiment better now. My friends are subscribing to the system where a person only has value when they are young, when, as you say above they have no power or resources left to give. But to me it seems clear that America gives no inherent value to life itself, or it and its citizens (myself included) would work harder to protect that life with basic access to healthcare and living wages. There would be protections in place that didn’t allow admins to take money that is so desperately needed by staff. The dollar would not be what America worships. The rich would not be obscenely wealthy at the expense of everyone else. White Americans have accepted this system for so long because the brunt of the disparities falls onto Black and Brown bodies. They can adhere to their illusions of equal opportunity and work hard instead to make sure they’re a rung or two up.

[Jen Scaggs]

What steps are we taking to mitigate care of our own families being thrust on Black and brown caregivers for little to no pay?

I am lucky that my parents are still pretty active and healthy at this point, so we haven’t really needed to address this issue yet. But this is a good reminder that we should try to prepare before it is needed. Reading the article, I was struck by the idea that COVID was likely spread more quickly due to the need of the workers to hold multiple jobs. That hadn’t occurred to me, and it is such a failure of our system that we don’t pay these important workers enough to live on.

How are we taking action to bolster communities so that resources are available for families who cannot afford care centers?

That’s a good question. Healthcare reform is sorely needed. As well as repairing wage inequities so that they will have a better chance of having the resources they need.

What are we teaching our children about disposability when power or resources can no longer be extracted from people?

I am involving my kids in sending cards and pictures to older members of our church during the pandemic. Trying to teach them that we want to show others that we care and do something nice to put a smile on their face, and it doesn’t have anything to do with their “value” to us since we don’t get anything out of it ourselves.

COVID-19 is now adding potential for an large influx of younger generations due to long term effects. How are we preparing to address the increasing needs without dehumanizing or shuffling the responsibility to others?

This is so mind boggling to consider the impact of COVID in this way, but it is definitely something that will put a strain on the system and we as a whole need to figure out how to make sure the facilities are fully staffed and the workers are paid better. It is a big issue that many of the facilities are for-profit companies that do not share these priorities and are instead more worried about making money.

Where is your clench? Where do you find yourself retreating and wanting to protect yourself and your own in this discussion?

My clench is probably about feeling powerless to make real change in the governmental policies that could make a difference in this area (health care, wages, regulation of facilities, etc.) I also feel similar to @leahgallo regarding the difficulty with saving money to prepare for long term care, while still attempting to help fulfill financial needs of others.

[Shannon Brescher Shea]

>>What steps are we taking to mitigate care of our own families being thrust on Black and brown caregivers for little to no pay?

My parents and in-laws are both in excellent health, so I honestly haven’t put much thought into this yet, although I really should. Thankfully, my parents have moved relatively close to me and my in-laws are close to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, so we will be more able to provide care as needed than if they lived far away. Just as I’m preparing for my children’s educations, I too should be thinking about care taking for my parents and what kind of responsibility I need to take for that. I think we would need to take on much of the care ourselves, but at the same time, what if we couldn’t? What if we would need help? How could we support a fair and just system?

>>How are we taking action to bolster communities so that resources are available for families who cannot afford care centers?

In my own community, I try to support affordable housing and senior and disability services that provide support to people who are aging in place as well as those caring for people in their own homes. It’s definitely something to consider when I’m thinking about issues like affordable housing and transportation – how are these accessible (or not) to people who need care and people who provide it?

>>What are we teaching our children about disposability when power or resources can no longer be extracted from people?

When we disregard the value of people only because they are older or disabled, we are truly showing our children how little we value people in general. Which of course, they’ll internalize – both as seeing people different from themselves who don’t have power as worth less and seeing themselves (who don’t have power or economic value) as worth less too. And that exasperates racism because they see that people who aren’t white, especially folks who are Black and have other intersections, have less power.

>> COVID-19 is now adding potential for an large influx of younger generations due to long term effects. How are we preparing to address the increasing needs without dehumanizing or shuffling the responsibility to others?

I think we need a caregivers stipend. That way, people can have caregiving as a full-time job and not have to work outside of the home. In addition, we need a massive system overhaul of the systems – as not everyone has family who can take care of them or want that independence – that can pay people fairly for the incredibly hard work of caregiving in these institutions. To do that, we need to shift our culture’s perspective around this work from seeing it as worthless and low-skill to incredibly important and skilled.

>>Where is your clench? Where do you find yourself retreating and wanting to protect yourself and your own in this discussion?

I think in deflecting blame. I feel like I’m not responsible because I haven’t had to deal with it personally yet, but that just means I haven’t dealt with it personally, not that I’m not responsible. It’s the responsibility of all of us.

[Author]

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