Fine Evening to All:
I ran accross this article and thought it was apropos, given the number of
young care-givers who recently joined the group. I wish to extend a warm
welcome to them!
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- May 22, 1996
Care-Giver Duties Debunk--Generation X Stereotypes
IF YOU THINK of Generation X as a disaffected
crowd with tattoos and pierced navels, meet John
LaVaccare. When his mother fell ill
with Parkinson and dementia and his father moved out,
Mr. LaVaccare, then in his
teens, changed career goals from science to
business so he could avoid graduate school and
help care for her.
He landed a job as an accountant at a Big Six
firm and lived with friends in Chicago's trendy
Lincoln Park area. But it was too hard to manage
his mother's care, so at 23 he moved in with his
mother in a nearby neighborhood. He missed out
on the lifestyle of a successful young bachelor.
But he hung in as a primary caregiver for four
years, when family members stepped in so he could
attend medical school.
Does he regret the years of sacrifice? No, says
Mr. LaVaccare, now 30 years old. "I felt helping
out at home was more important."
There are a lot more John LaVaccares out there
than you think. A new study of 1,000 people by
the National Council on the Aging and John
Hancock Mutual Life Insurance has surprised
long-term care experts by showing that 24% of
people under 32 have provided, or are providing,
hands-on, long-term care to a family member or
friend. That compares with 31% of the total
population who has done so.
The study matches findings by Maury Hanigan of
Hanigan Consulting Group, New York
human-resource consultants, showing "a strong
sense of family, and a high priority placed on
family" among Generation Xers. Those values
often surprise employers trying to hire or transfer
young workers, she adds.
fragment, scatter
and re-form in nontraditional patterns,
grandchildren often find themselves caring for
grandparents; that was the case among 59% of
the Generation X caregivers surveyed.
OTHER FACTORS: the AIDS epidemic and a
trend toward adult children living with parents
longer, says Leslie Faught of Working Solutions,
Portland, Ore.
Behind the statistics lie poignant stories of young
caregivers even more isolated than their older
counterparts. "If you're 21 or 22 and you're
caring for somebody who is ill, how can your
friends relate to you? They're starting careers,
going to school, getting married, and you're tied
to a bedpan," says Suzanne Mintz of the National
Family Caregivers Association, Kensington, Md.
In his 20s, Mr. LaVaccare missed the
neighborhood basketball games and some of the
dating his friends enjoyed. Though he was
struggling to juggle care-giving with his
demanding job, he didn't talk about his family role
with co-workers. He became so immersed in it
that he nearly lost his sense of self.
Only after he began using the resources atAlzheimer's
Association, a national organization
based in Chicago, did he understand "that I had
my own life," he says. He attended a support
group, where older caregivers encouraged him to
meet his own needs. Now, as he completes
medical school at University of Chicago, he says
he's glad he realized "a terminal illness isn't a
good focal point for your life at age 23."
Of all caregivers, the under-36 age group are the
most likely to be depressed, says Lynn Friss
Feinberg of the Family Caregivers Alliance, a
nonprofit resource group in San Francisco.
Among the caregivers the Alliance has helped,
more Generation Xers than any other group
needed additional medical care themselves and
25% had to quit jobs to provide care.
Heather Urban, 28, an administrative assistant for
a Boston nonprofit concern, was ready to
interview for higher-paying jobs when her father,
a 61-year-old widower, had a disabling stroke. To
keep him out of a government-funded nursing
home, she quit her job and moved to California to
care for him.
AFTER SHE brought her father home from thehospital, he grew
depressed and began waking
her up repeatedly through the night for help.
Exhausted, "I started to just go mental," says Ms.
Urban. "I was crying all the time."
Her father's doctor intervened, treating him for
depression and insisting she spend at least an
hour a day away from the house. She joined a
swim class and a theater group. But she has
given up dating. The men she knows "really
weren't accepting of my situation," she says. She
still misses the camaraderie of co-workers at her
job; "I miss feeling like there's some reason for
me to be, besides Dad."
Other Generation X caregivers must cut back at
work at a time when they would like to go all-out
for career. Helen Wong, 24, was working
overtime at an environmental-cleanup company
and hoping to land a job as a government auditor
when her father had a stroke. Ms. Wong, who
lives at her parents' home, was so swamped by
insurance paperwork and helping her father that
she cut back overtime.
When she got the job offer she had hoped for,
she hesitated. It required travel. "What if
something happens when I'm gone?" she worried.
She took it, but schedules her days so tightly tha
she has no time for herself. On business trips,
she calls home daily and keeps lists of "10,000
things" to do when she returns.
Ms. Wong sometimes yearns for a more carefree
lifestyle. But she finds her parents' plight
heartbreaking, she says. "People say to me,
'Why don't you just move out?' But if I did, I
wouldn't have peace of mind."
