Whether it’s helping an aging parent, supporting a partner through illness or raising a child with special needs, millions of Americans are providing unpaid care to a loved one. And if they were compensated, it would cost around $600 billion a year.
WWNO and WRKF have partnered with the producers of the PBS documentary, Caregiving, to shine a spotlight on America’s caregiving crisis. We talked to people living in south Louisiana about their caregiving situations and the unique challenges the region brings when caring for others.
On Tuesday, we heard from Barbara Youngblood, a dedicated caregiver for her community and family for over 20 years. Now that she is the recipient of caregiving, she has seen the process from both sides of the relationship and considers the lessons she has learned.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
My name is Barbara Osborne Youngblood. I've been working, taking care of people off and on for over 20 years.
Taking care of people is a challenging job. It really is because you see the good in people, and you see the bad in people.
I started off with a lady who was strictly bed bound. My thing with her was to make sure she was clean, turning them, cleaning them, changing them, and all this kind of stuff. You have to make sure they get exercised. So even though she was bed bound, I would make her try to move her legs.
You know, you would think they would want you to help 'em, but a lot of times they don't. You can't get angry about everything they do because I tell you they can be oh Lord mean really mean, and that's the pride in them and that really surprised me.
Then they had a doctor at the hospital who needed help with her parents. I got the job, and I started helping with the mom and the dad. And at first, the dad, he didn't like me. He could do everything himself too. We used to do little things we shouldn't be doing, but they didn't eat a lot of fried food. But every now and then, I asked Ms. Jones, I said, you wanna get some Popeye's chicken? And she said, “yeah.” So we'd get the two-piece, mild, bring it home, and she'd have one piece and her husband would have one piece and they would be so happy. And the daughter come home, she say, where that Popeye's chicken come from?
And I said, well, y'all can't have no more this here, no more this here.
Then from there, I moved on to taking care of my mom when Katrina happened, and we had to move my mom, oh Lord, she was so scared. Lord have mercy. She was scared we were going to drop her. If it didn't take an hour to get her in the car because she was scared, and then to take and put a person in the car that's been in the bed for God knows how long, and take 'em on like a 14-hour drive, it's scary. It is really, really scary.
But that's my experience. Taking care of people. It can be a hard job. It could be a sad job, but when you all do this, think about your own self in that situation.
