Perhaps this comes out of the blue for some, but when it comes to providing informal care, I can only shout 'DOEN' wholeheartedly. Of course you have to be able to combine informal care with your work and yes, it also puts pressure on your own private life, but it is definitely worth it. I'll tell you why.
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That's how I look at it. And I have to admit… I may be a bit biased because I was lucky enough to have been able to combine informal care for me. Both my parents have now passed away, unfortunately, but the last 7 years have been completely dominated by informal care for my mother and then my father. And when I look back on it, I can only be very grateful for it.
Let me first clarify that, because many people do not know exactly what informal care actually is. Informal care is more than everyday care. You are a carer if you provide unpaid care to someone for a longer period of time. This care is more than you can normally expect from each other. In addition, a caregiver ensures that no or less home help needs to be called in.
Maybe you suddenly find out that you are actually also a caregiver, that could just be. I didn't realize in the beginning that I was a caregiver, but I would like to tell you more about my situation at the time and the choice I made.
For starters, I have one sister and two brothers. That means we are four children. In addition, all four of us are in the fortunate circumstance that we can make our own choices 'reasonably easy'. During the time we took care of my mother's care (at that time still together with my father), three of the four were self-employed and my eldest brother was director of a foundation. He, too, was able to free up his agenda.
We have therefore shared the informal care with the four of us all these years and that of course makes a huge difference in the pressure. Especially if you get on well with each other, sharing the informal care means that your private life does not have to suffer very much. Yes it is (temporarily) busier, but it is doable. And do you know, for example, that you may also be eligible for informal care reimbursement? That may also make it more financially possible, more about that below.
If you are a carer, you will see the situation differently. Only with more intensive care do you notice how ill and/or dependent the person in question is. My mother passed away 6 years ago and at the beginning of her Alzheimer's period there was no care for us yet. My father did everything. And since he also concealed everything he was doing, the seriousness of the situation only really became clear to me when I also became a caregiver myself. Only then will you be confronted with the facts. You also learn to understand the person in question much better, because you know the background better, for example. Or because you experience the run-up to a situation instead of just the result.
I won't lie, as a caregiver you are going to have a tough time. Still, I am very grateful for those years. Not only have I come to understand my parents much better, but the bond with my father and mother has also been greatly strengthened by the informal care. Now the relationship with my parents was not bad, but in a young family with growing children you often have a lot more on your mind, so that a visit to grandparents is usually 'quick in between'. In addition, there is often no room for in-depth conversations, especially when the children are present.
As I said, I didn't even realize I was a caregiver at the time. We shared caring for my parents and I did that with love. After all, they have been there for me all my life.
I think this is where the biggest challenge lies. Not in providing the informal care itself, but in making time available for that informal care. How do you get your life into this new balance. If you still work outside the home, it is first of all important to assess whether you can still work those hours in addition to informal care and your own family. If that becomes difficult, be sure to talk to your employer. Now that we live in our new house, we have the option to take in parents/in-laws, but that is often not the case.
Discuss why you want to take on this informal care and think in advance how you would like to approach it. This way you can submit your wish to your employer as a 'ready-made' plan. If he or she notices that you are not only busy with your private life and your informal care, but have also thought about how you can combine this with your work, you have a greater chance that they will think along with you in solutions.
Perhaps you can take some work home with you or work from home in the evening so that you can free up time during the day to take care of the informal care. That's how I did it with my own business, working more in the evenings.
Don't worry too much about your salary because there are opportunities here too. For example, you may be eligible for an informal care allowance from Zilveren Kruis or another organisation. A PGB (personal budget) can also be used to reimburse the informal carer. Of course, all rules have been drawn up for this. The Netherlands would not be the Netherlands if this were not the case. More information about the PGB can be found at the Social Insurance Bank.
In order to fit informal care into your private life, it is important that the whole family helps. Not so much in the informal care itself, but for example with the tasks at home. My children did more chores at the time and Frank ran just a little faster than he always does. During the time we were together as a family, we consciously took more time for each other.
If I could do it over again, I would pick it up again in a heartbeat. In fact, I might want to be available for even more hours. Very often the years in which you provide informal care are also 'the last' years. That all sounds a bit miserable, and of course it is not always the case, but when it comes to informal care with your parents, that is quickly the situation. That means this time will never come back. You can never do it again. And I can tell you… I would give a lot to help my parents with their care again.
This blog is the result of a collaboration.
