Friday Thread: Everything You Know (and Need To Know) About Eldercare

I have vivid memories of reporting on the costs of eldercare back in 2021 for a series I was doing for Vox. The unifying theme of the series was “it’s very expensive to try and maintain your place in the middle class” — and why. I reported features about childcare, and student debt, and the hollowing out of the Black middle class, and the way our society is set up to penalize single people. But the piece I wrote on the emotional and financial costs of eldercare — that’s the one that’s still inciting emails.

Why? Because we don’t talk about it until we’re forced to. Because it’s often embarrassing for those who need it — and those needs can appear so gradually that it’s easy to keep it hidden….until, suddenly, it’s not. That’s what eldercare experts call “the cliff” — the moment when people in an elder’s life have to really reckon with how they’re going to work with their parent or relative or dear friend to figure out care. Because at that point, it’s non-negotiable: either you figure out care or things get really dire really quickly.

I invite you to read or revisit the piece I wrote on why eldercare is so expensive and complicated, because there are reasons it feels so hard: our understanding of who’s responsible for care, first and foremost, but also our systemic devaluation of this sort of care. These are knotty problems that we most solve as a society, but until we do, I wanted to create a forum here on Culture Study to share and ask for advice, because the current system (and our supports for it) are so opaque.

Whether you’re aging and trying to make things easier for yourself and your immediate network, or you’re struggling with navigating these systems (or anxious about how you’ll do so) as someone who’s currently (or eventually) providing care — this is the space for you.

I want to caveat that we have readers of all ages so be mindful of how you talk about people who are older or younger than you and trying to make things work. Receiving and giving eldercare is complex, difficult, vulnerable work, and we want this space to be useful, not hurtful.

That doesn’t mean you can’t voice frustrations with your current situation, it just means that you should talk about it within the context if your current situation, not as something that all parents or all children do.

Our usual Culture Study guidelines about keeping this one of the good places on the internet applies, and I’ll be monitoring the thread closely to make sure we adhere to it.