Not the solution to the "caregiving crisis"
There are certain categories of Facebook comments we get on our posts (or, since I'm the only one who posts on the Facebook page, my posts) over and over again:
This post on X type of caregiver doesn't mention Y caregivers. What about Y caregivers?!
My personal experience with Z is not the same as this person's experience with Z, so this is FAKE NEWS / LIES!!!
You post all this negative and scary stuff, you should be staying positive and sharing solutions! You're part of the problem!
Sometimes these comments irk me, but they also intrigue me.
For the first one, fair enough, you've been promised a newsfeed that is 100% tailored to you. I post often on a huge variety of topics. It's on Facebook if they're showing you the wrong ones.
The second category is...pretty easy to dismiss. Sure, if we're at a BBQ I'm happy to discuss concepts of the Truth at length or listen to your elaborate conspiracy theory, but no, I'm not sharing fake news on our Facebook page.
The third one seems to be suggesting that if I'm not ready to give a TED talk on how I've Solved Social Justice I should stop bothering them, because it's upsetting. Which, woah.
I'm allergic to those simplistic news stories where some pre-pubescent white kid from middle America has solved the plastic pollution problem or how someone is going to give all the homeless people tiny houses made of dumpsters (not hypothetical!). The solutions are usually so problematic that I don't even know where to start.
There are few simple solutions to complex social issues. Caregivers face a pretty wide range of exceptionally complex social issues.
Not long into my time with The Caregiver Space, I started getting that same visceral response to startup pitches solving "caregiver burden" as I get when I read about tiny dumpster houses for the homeless. At this point as soon as I hear the word "app" I brace myself. It's usually the same features as every other caregiver app, just in a different color. They're devising any meaningful solutions.
The thing is, caregiving isn't a problem to solve. The care part is one of the most fundamental parts of what makes life worth living.
The "burden" in caregiving isn't the fact that people in our lives need care. Humans are interdependent. We don't make it very far on our own.
When doctors talk about caregiver burden, they talk about increasing access to healthcare. When corporations talk about caregiver burden, they talk about making it possible to earn an income and also support each other. When startups talk about caregiver burden, they talk about the administrative work that's outsourced onto patients and their families. These are all a good start, but they're so zoomed into their silos that they're missing the big picture.
People talk about the caregiving crisis as if it's an inevitable part of medical advances and the baby boom, but that's nonsense. Caregiving has been a part of our lives since before we were homo sapiens. Why is it so overwhelming now?
The answers to that don't make for a good TED talk. They're complicated.
None of us are just caregivers. We each come into caregiving with a unique situation. The experience of caring for each other is something all humans share, but the burdens caregivers face are very much tied to our class, gender, race, and the other factors that determine so much of our lives.
That's not something I can tell you how to solve in a Facebook post.
PS. It's been a year since I switched from sending out a formatted, polished newsletter with our latest articles to me sending you whatever's on my mind. One of the perks of not being part of the nonprofit industrial complex is not having to do what a 'real' nonprofit is supposed to do.
There was another big change, too. This time last year we had over 30,000 people on our newsletter list. Which meant we were paying for 30,000 subscribers, some of whom had moved on in their lives and some of whom were corporate shrills.
After several major culls, I got our list down to 1,200 people. This saves us $215 a month and saves people from getting a newsletter they don't actually read in their inbox every week.
So, thanks for being here and congrats on making the cut :)