Care Work

I have had many encounters with care work and care workers in my life. When I was younger, my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and needed to be under 24/7 care. She came to live with my family and we looked after her while she still had some of her mind. But as she got worse, my parents had to hire care workers who would come to our house Mon-Fri to care for her while my parents were at work and me and my sister were at school.

I got close with many of the care workers as they would be there when I got home from school. Most were very kind and took wonderful care of my grandmother. The more I got to know them, the more they told me about their working conditions. Many people were not docile and nice like my grandmother. And a lot of the care workers were moved from client to client weekly or even daily. To make a good connection with a care worker was rare.

They work long hours, and depending on their schedule, can work very late/early schedules. To top it all off, they are not fairly compensated for the amount of work they put in. My parents would give the care workers some extra side money around holidays. We actually got so close with one of the care workers, we took in her dog when she passed, and we still have her to this day!

In all, care workers are very important and make life much easier for many families who cannot allot time to take care of the ones who need it. Despite their importance, they are treated unfairly and often looked down upon, but care workers are some of the best people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Namely my favorites, Betsy & Debbie.