Family Caregiving - Calculating Time Cost - 2024 01 31

 



It is difficult to understand why it has taken this long for me to understand the real impact of family caregiving on time cost in a family caregiving household. I knew what it felt like after the first three months. I did not know specifically what it was until now.

For two years I kept thinking there was something I could do to finally get it right. That I only needed to manage my time, my caregiving routines, my household, well enough, and I wouldn't feel so resentful, put upon, taken advantage, trapped.

It should come as no surprise that providing a family caregiving bed for a frail elder would have a significant impact on time cost. Additionally, it should come as no surprise that the time cost of providing family caregiving is going to have a significant impact on the capacity and capability for a family caregiver to also perform paid work in addition to family caregiving work.

When we brought Mom home, we also brought home her needs for caregiving 24/7. We brought home the scheduling for her care, the transitions and context shifts of having people coming and going every day, throughout the day. We brought home Mom's need to have all her nourishment - water, food, beverages, social connection, medical attention, health and safety, transportation, finances, etc. provided by us. That she could not do for herself, we were going to do for her.

The cost of caregiving time has a direct and corrollary impact on our capacity and capability to perform paid work.

These are both time costs. They cannot be individuated from each other. They are two parts of the same whole, the immutable fact of a 24 hour day and the realities of what how much work a human being can do.


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