To the Editor:
Re “The Comedy and Horror of Becoming My Parents’ Keepers,” by Michelle Cottle (Opinion, Nov. 30):
Ms. Cottle’s story about her parents moved me deeply. It scares me half to death, as a 79-year-old woman in excellent health.
The countdown has begun — just as it did with my sister, who is now 86 and living in a nursing home with dementia. We look at the photos on her wall, the family albums on her dresser, and we see the woman she once was — smiling, vibrant — and the woman she has become.
Nursing homes are often criticized for short staffing, limited care and overworked aides, and much of it is deserved. My niece, my sister’s daughter, remains her mother’s de facto caregiver, making sure she is clean, her bed is changed and she receives a proper shower. I remind her that her mother is one of so many.
As we keep people alive longer through medication, the future for aging parents (I suppose I’m one now) does not look promising.
As Ms. Cottle writes, foreign-born workers are the lifeblood of caregiving, yet in this political climate we ship them off. Most families cannot manage this care alone; we urgently need trained nurses and aides to help.
Thank you, Ms. Cottle, for sharing your story. It touched a nerve for many of us.
Linda Tesauro Jamison, Pa.
To the Editor:
All through my reading of Michelle Cottle’s deeply and thoroughly written article, I kept marveling at her ability to so exquisitely describe “the comedy and horror” of caring for aging parents.
I had a taste of that when my parents died many years ago and when my husband died seven years ago. But now that I’ve turned 89 and in the independent living part of a continuing care retirement community, I’m looking at the future from the other side.
Now I’m thinking about how my three sons, all in their 60s — and living far from me and one another — will cope with my aging. Although they’ve each already taken turns leaving their families during my various short-term emergencies, no one knows what’s coming next. And it certainly is not going to get better.
Ms. Cottle rightly points out the irreparable harm President Trump has put upon our nation and elsewhere with his slashing of so much health-related funding and so many services. His actions have been and will continue to be death sentences for millions of unsuspecting innocents everywhere.
Who, if anyone, can turn this man’s mind toward understanding the complexities of life, fair play and compassion toward others?
Isabel Knecht Kessler Valhalla, N.Y.
To the Editor:
I’m grateful to see caregiving being given the attention it deserves in this article, but by centering the crisis so heavily on one administration’s Medicaid cuts and immigration limits, the piece risks pointing readers toward too narrow a culprit.
I think the deeper truth is much more structural. America’s older adult population has grown nearly 40 percent in a decade and will soon reach one in five Americans. More than 63 million family caregivers are absorbing enormous strain. Medicaid already shoulders most long-term care costs for a relatively small share of enrollees, and that model has been unsustainable for years. No single set of policies created this; decades of bipartisan avoidance did.
Governors have long underfunded home- and community-based services. Congress has repeatedly sidestepped long-term care reform. Employers still act as though family caregiving is infinitely expandable. And culturally, we ignore frailty until it is in our living rooms.
To help address these problems, I’ve helped build a company that aims to rapidly expand the care work force by developing a domestic pipeline of more than 50,000 college students pursuing health careers and matching them with people and families who need care. It’s just one small structural step in a much larger rebuild the nation urgently needs.
Neal K. Shah Research Triangle Park, N.C. The writer is a co-founder and the chief executive officer of CareYaya Health Technologies.
To the Editor:
Michelle Cottle’s excellent essay on the growing caregiver crisis includes the comment, “Never have I been so grateful not to be an only child.”
I, too, cared for my aging father. My mother was already deceased, and I have no siblings. The responsibilities were thus all mine.
As my father disintegrated, I was grateful that there was no ambiguity about next steps in his care. My friends with siblings who were also caring for aging parents experienced otherwise: They disagreed about how to manage finances, where their parent should live and the levels of care and interventions they should receive. As an only child, I was spared those burdens.
My beloved father was liberated this past February. There is a painful realization as the only child: No one else remembers my dad the way I do.
Maria Yang Seattle
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