for Elder Care, Too

By Rhoda Feng

Who Cares: The Hidden Crisis of Caregiving, and How We Solve It

By Emily Kenway Hachette

When my grandfather became terminally ill, my parents chose to hire a home health aide for him rather than putting him in a nursing home. A medical bed was installed in his room—by that point, he was living with my parents—and the aide was deputized to wash him, feed him, change his clothes, and help with other activities of daily living. On days when classes ended early, I would spend part of my time sitting in the living room, pretending to read, but really listening for the slightest sound that sig- naled the care worker needed an extra pair of hands. One time, my grandfather slipped while trying to get out of bed and I found him propped against the legs of a chair. In a semi-lucid state, he had trouble telling me, in either his native Chinese or in English, what he had been trying to do; all that escaped him was a soughing sound that seemed to plead with me not to be too angry with him. After examining him for wounds (luckily, he hadn’t hurt himself too badly), the caretaker and I managed to lift him back onto his bed.

I recount my experience not because it is unique, but because it is common: You probably have a similar story about caring for a family member or seeking surrogates who do. Despite its ubiquity, elder care often gets elided in public debates about care work, which lately seem to begin and end with the question of how to raise kids. A new book by Emily Kenway, Who Cares: The Hidden Crisis of Caregiving, and How We Solve It, renders starkly visible the often invisible work of caregiving—one of the fastest-growing segments of the American workforce—and the toll such work exacts on its providers. With its impressive synthesis of research, textured analysis of care work in different countries, and its attention to the ethical issues inherent in elder care, it deserves a space on the shelf next to similar books on elder care like Ai-jen Poo’s The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America , which proposed a “Care Grid” (a network comprising family members and professional caregivers reinforced by federal and state policy) to take care of