Interview 2

Care work encompasses caring for others in various forms, such as family members, friends, and volunteering in the community. The definition of care work has changed significantly for the speaker over the past few years, particularly due to the sudden loss of her parents. Volunteering at Art to Heart, a Christian non-profit, helped develop her compassion for those in need. Transitioning from caring for many people to caring for her father alone was a major adjustment. Despite not having a formal education in care work, raising children provided some knowledge and experience. However, the speaker acknowledges that formal education would have been beneficial. The lack of infrastructure and resources for family members who become care workers is a challenge. The speaker wishes there were better support systems and classes available to assist children taking care of their aging parents. Self-care is important in care work, although the speaker admits struggling to prioritize it due to the My first question is, what does care work mean to you? Well, the big, it's caring for others and that can come in all forms of things. Caring for your children, your husband, your parents, even friends. And how has that definition changed over the past few years? So, like from volunteering to being a daughter, how has it changed? Tremendously. I would say that I always knew that there'd come a day when I'd have to go from my own schedule to being on someone else's schedule. My mom or dad, depending on which one, passed away first and I wasn't quite prepared for the suddenness of it because as soon as grandma died, then dad had his bladder surgery, so we went right into that. So, it changed my life 90 degrees. And so, you volunteered for Art to Heart, the Christian non-profit for years. And in a way, that is a form of care work. It's volunteering to care for those in the community. How has the lessons and things you've learned from there helped you in your new journey of care work? Oh, just being in the atmosphere of Art to Heart has softened my heart and made me more caring for people who are in need because it's people all over the world that need our help. And even if it's a small thing you do, it might be a big thing to them. So, to go from doing that for so many other people to switching gears and having to do a lot for my dad, it was a huge change for me because I had to change everything. I had to drive down there. I had to be there. I didn't know how long I was staying. I had to be the shoulder for my dad. So, it's going from doing a little to care for a lot of people to doing a lot to care for one person. And so, obviously, when you're volunteering, you didn't always have those personal connections with the people you were helping. Did you think that helped set you up for having a more personal connection with your now care work? Are you able to not step back in a way, but to kind of look at the bigger picture of how to help your dad without realizing it's your dad? Yeah, I mean, volunteering at Art to Heart, like you said, I didn't get to always see the people that we cared for and did things for or provided funds for. But again, that doing that, it makes you realize people are in need and people need your help. And if we all said no to that, they'd never get help. So, that did provide me a foundation to then step into my role as the daughter taking care of the dad and just having patience with him and knowing he needed me and I had to be there. And so, you're not formally educated in care work. So, like you didn't go to school to be a nurse or, I can't think, like a professional care worker. Do you, besides the like logistics, like not knowing like medication and stuff, how do you think that has impacted like not having a formal education in care work? Or do you think having, not having an education in care work has helped? Well, raising two kids kind of puts you in that knowledge, if you will. So, yeah, it would have been good to know a few things going into it. But I feel like, I feel like I wish I would have taken a class or something. Like after grandma died, if they said, okay, now go take a class on how to care for your dad two and a half hours away, that would have been really helpful to me. So, you just kind of like fall into it and go, okay, now we're gonna do this. Okay, now we have to deal with this. So, kind of going off of that, my next question is gonna be about infrastructures in place for family members becoming those care workers. My original question is gonna be on how, like would you wish there was a facility that would allow you to kind of take it, not a step back, but like, so grandpa could be in a better place down in Armstrong. But I guess my new question is, how do you wish there were better infrastructures, classes, education to help the children taking care of their aging parents? Yeah, and I'm sure there is. I didn't have the time to find it because I feel like that would be really helpful. Like even a community, you know how they always have community classes and stuff. It would have been helpful to go through something like that to know, you know, you just kind of fall into things. Like we found out he could order his prescription drugs and they could be delivered instead of him having to drive 20 miles to get them. And then we found out through the social worker at the hospital that there was meal deliveries he could get. And so I think you kind of fall into some things, but if there was something like, hey, in the state of Iowa, these are all the things you can do for seniors living on their own. Yeah, that would have been helpful. Okay. That actually, I wanted to ask you about infrastructure, but I didn't know how, so that I guess to make it more accessible for people to learn more about these services and especially for people who are in different states than their parents. Okay. And then the last thing is self-care is an important aspect of care work. So in our first unit in our class, we read the secret to superhuman strength by Alison Bechdel. And it's a whole book on her journey of finding herself through exercise. That is her self-care. How have you kept self-care in an important aspect of your life these last few months? Well, I'll start by saying I could have done better because grieving mom, trying to take care of dad and still having two grown children, but yet still under my care somewhat. You don't always sleep. So getting sleep is important. And I didn't allow, I wasn't, what's the word I'm looking for? I wasn't, I didn't look for ways to help me sleep better. But I do, I walk. I try to walk three, four times a week to get exercise because I know stress is a huge, can have a huge impact on your physical wellbeing. But just now, mom has been gone for six months now. And I feel like I'm ready to step into a little more self-care for myself and take care of myself and be healthier. Because if I'm not healthy, then I'm not good for anyone else, yeah.