Care is the case study for personal = political

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Here’s my pattern: I have a personal experience of disjuncture, confusion, heartbreak, surprise, and then I start tentatively, at first, and then with more vigor, asking around: “Everybody else seeing this?”

Sometimes people say, “Yes, we see this. But it’s just how it is.” (I don’t like this answer. Ever.)

Sometimes people say, “I hadn’t thought about it quite the way you’re describing, but yes, I see it and I think it’s messed up, too.” (This is better.)

Sometimes people say, “Yeah, but what could we possibly do about it?” (This one really puts fire under my ass.)

I start researching. I start reporting. I start obsessively discussing the issue with anyone nerdy enough at the cocktail party to pair up with me. I pitch stories to whoever will take me. I mostly get rejected. I sometimes get a big, fat YES from the exact right editorial partner.

That’s what happened to me with the except of the article I am about to share which went live in The Nation this week.

Ever since discovering that my dad’s memory care community is worker-owned, I’ve been convinced that it is a huge part of the reason that it is such a humane place in a sea of more and more inhumane elder care. So I started digging and discovered that there is a small, but growing movement of worker owned elder care providers. That’s right! The person who provide the daily care in your home to your auntie with dementia who loves murder mysteries is not only the one that reminds her when the new Matlock is on and makes her a delicious dinner to eat while watching it, but decides (along with her colleagues) how much care partners gets paid, how long their work hours are, how much vacation time they get, what the nature of the hiring and training process is etc. etc. In other words, they are caregivers, but also leaders and experts. Duh.

It’s a win-win-win. The care partner wins because she’s treated with dignity and agency. The person being cared for wins because she gets better care because her caregiver is fairly compensated and respected. The family members of the person being cared for wins because they know their loved one is in skilled, respected hands. And wait, there’s one more win! The rest of the medical team, if they’re smart, win if they listen to the insights of the care partners who know the most about the day-to-day quality of life of their clients.

You can read all about it in this meaty, reported piece. Thanks to my incredible editor, Emily Douglas, who brought both a skilled editorial eye, but her whole heart to the collaboration, and special thanks to all the amazing people I spoke with for the piece—every last one of whom left me more informed, more hopeful, and more aware to the deep origins of this growing movement (so many of these are generational stories). I can’t wait to hear what you think…

Clara with her most recent client, Sam.

When she was 33 years old, Clara Calvo came to New York City from the Dominican Republic. Along and looking for a foothold in her new country, she took a job at a garment factory sewing cotton T-shirts. Her mother, a skilled seamstress who had raised 12 children, had passed on her sewing skills to Clara—skills that would help her earn more than the base salary of just over $4 an hour.

When Clara went to collect her pay after her first two weeks on the job, the floor boss told her she was owed for only one week. She remembers staring him down across the table that separated them. Her fellow workers had told her that the company owed them money too but that they were afraid to press the issue. Many of them were undocumented; what if the boss reported them to immigration officials? “Mantén la cabezabaja,” they told her. Just keep your head down.

From her mother, Clara also inherited a lack of tolerance for bullshit. When the boss continued to insist that she had miscalculated, she pushed the table into his belly and said, “I want my money today or I’m going to call 911.”

She left with what she was owed and vowed to never come back. But finding better work proved difficult. Stints dyeing women’s hair at a salon in Staten Island—where the sharp smell of ammonia made her feel sick—and working in the unbearably hot confines of a food truck weren’t long-lived. Things at home were eroding too; she and her new husband fought a lot. One night he hit her in the face and became violent with her young daughter. She was determined to leave him but needed a dependable job. But how?

In 2001, her friend recommended she check out Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. “You could be a home attendant,” her friend explained.

Clara was hired and took to the work at CHCA immediately…

Read the rest here. Or in the print September issue.

And if you are a family member or a client looking for care (especially in California, Washington, New York, and Wisconsin, where there are particularly robust hubs of worker-owned care), take the time to try to find such an agency to support your family.