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Community and Care Taking
We need to do right by our elderly
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on this topic for a long while. It’s a long one, so settle in, or come back and read when you have more time.
I have been reading Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study here on substack. I love it. She writes on so many interesting and important topics. A while ago she had a post about the care of children and elderly (or lack thereof) and the fact that this has women dropping out of the workforce in record numbers. Either because they can’t find childcare to work, or they have to care for elderly parents. She also talks about having a community. A village.
These are so hard to find these days. I know I don’t have one, and my situation in life makes it really hard to try to find one, and/or keep one. I’m a single parent of four children. All four have a range of diagnoses. When they are with their dad, I’m busy trying to do things I can’t do when they are here (sometimes the simplest of things like cleaning, washing dishes, doing laundry). I also spend a lot of time dealing with therapies (two of the children have two different therapies going on, and I have my own therapy) and school issues. I am generally running behind on work deadlines, so I also work on catching up when they aren’t here. This week, I’m still catching up on my Sunday deadline on Wednesday…
