Who Cares: Looking After People at Home

by Cherrill Hicks (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1988

  $5.12

  Three million people, mostly women, look after their disabled or elderly relatives. This book shows that different forms of caring on which our society depends are now in crisis. With the growing numbers of elderly and disabled people, and the lack of government back-up, carers can no longer cope. Through the voices of individual women and men we learn of the physical drudgery, financial stress, isolation and loss of freedom which caring for a dependent relative often entails. The book concentrates on the emotional conflicts which carers experience: the love and very unique attachment which can develop but also the feelings of resentment, frustration and chronic guilt which many of them share. Who cares is based on over 80 interviews with carers from all over Britain: women looking after disabled parents, husbands and children; carers in different ethnic communities; men looking after disabled wives and mothers; and gay men looking after partners with AIDS. It also includes chapters on institutional and community care and examines the current government's record on supporting carers. What carers and their disabled and eldery relatives need, Cherrill Hicks insists, is a radical new deal which would offer them a genuine alternative to an ever-worsening situation.