Expectations

 

I recently wrote a post on here about carers and how they are unsung heroes. I got some feedback from that blog post which asked me to discuss some more specifics about this so I will give it a try. I am not currently, or have I ever been what I would classify as a carer for anyone so some of this is my opinion or how I think something will impact. Some of the information comes from a fact sheet about carers which I will link at the end of the blog if you want to read into it a bit further. I think the first thing it is important to explain is what makes someone a carer? To be someone’s carer you don’t have to be the person getting them washed and dressed in a morning, they can have paid carers coming in to support with that and you can still be their carer. You might organise their care package and look after their money for them, you are still a carer. You might keep them company because you are worried about them being on their own, in your eyes you are visiting a parent but if there is another reason behind that such as worries for their safety then you are a carer.

One of the things that is interesting about caring roles is that the statistics tell us that more women are carers than men. Which shouldn’t really be all that surprising because as a society there has always been expectations of women to be the caring ones. This is shown by how when women are looking after their children they are looking after their children but when men do the same, they are “babysitting”. This comes down to the socially constructed roles that are created for different genders and is outdated. Not just because anyone can do anything but also because we live in a society where not everyone feels that they fit into either of those genders.

There are carers out there caring for different people in their lives, the main ones I come across regularly are children caring for parents or people caring for their spouses, although I know there will be other types out there. I imagine it would be extremely difficult being a carer for your parent because it is a role reversal. Parents are the people who bring you up, look after you, clean up after you and help when you are ill. When you are a carer for a parent that is what you are potentially doing for them. Having not been in either of these situations it is difficult to imagine how that would feel. For my parent to no longer be able to do certain things for themselves and to need to rely on me. I think this is something that is viewed differently in different cultures also. I was watching the Ed Balls care in crisis documentary on BBC Iplayer the other day and one of the people he spoke with was an Asian gentleman who discussed caring for his mother who had Dementia because that is the role as a child you are expected to take whereas in Western culture, I haven’t seen this as often. People seem much more likely to ask for help and look into what options are available out there.

As I said the other type of caring relationships, I come across often are those where someone is caring for a partner. I would imagine that this has a big impact on people’s relationships, and I have had people tell me this when working with them. I ask about how long they have been married and they will tell me the amount of time, 40, 50, sometimes even 60 years but when I ask how the relationship is now, they ask me what relationship? A lot of the people I support are older, so I end up working with a lot of people with some form of Dementia. This means that the person that they fell in love with all those years ago is no longer there and although they haven’t passed away the partner is still grieving. A lot of the time they complete the caring role because that is what they promised and what is expected of them. I have supported people to place loved ones into care homes and they have felt so guilty that they can no longer provide the support that they have been doing but as the statistics show us people who care end up poorly quite often. I think this comes from the fact that they give everything to make sure the loved one is cared for and they put themselves to the bottom of the list.

When the type of relationship you are in changes from a loving marriage of a long time to a caring one it changes the dynamics. Especially when the person may not even remember who you are. The gentleman who was shown on the documentary I mentioned earlier was so devoted to his wife that he does everything for her and said that he would continue to do everything asked because he loves her so much. This is the type of dedication that makes you want to do everything you can for that person but sometimes you only have so much to give, and you have lost the closeness that initially was making it all worthwhile. People take wedding vows very seriously and have this expectation of in sickness and in health so they expect that person to do certain things for them and when that is not the case, I would imagine they can become quite frustrated. The other side of this is that the person with Dementia does not recognise their own needs or forgets what support is being given to them and can become aggressive or abusive towards the partner because they do not feel they are doing enough when they are actually giving all they have.

Link to factsheet: https://www.carersuk.org/images/Facts_about_Carers_2019.pdf