I have comeacross a few teenagers who are priamry caregivers of their parents or do a major part of it. I have found them to be very depressed and often emotionally and verbally abused by the care-receivers.
Did u have any family member with long standing illness. How did it affect you?
Share ur experience.
Re: Teenage Caregivers
im not surprised... i find too many people tend to take family, and especially children, for granted. or they assume that they can be rough with their kids cos their kids will never abandon them. it sucks. and its not true. you push someone hard enough and they'll walk away. i've seen it happen and it ain't pretty.
Re: Teenage Caregivers
Iconoclast,
I would comment on just one aspect of this, related to female care givers.
It's difficult topic for desis to deal with, they don't like these sort of topics and actually in eastern system there isn't any support for these teenage carers, in Pakistan, I have seen some girls trapped in this situation and normally they, forced or of their will, are willing to sacrifice their whole life for the sick parents. Traditionally, son just walks out of the situation for his own marriage, but as these girls can't arrange their marriages then after the death of sick parent when their head is so grey, no one want to marry an old girl of 35/40. So I call them "dead Virgins". It's a kind of domestic abuse against women in desi families. I have all the sympathy for such girls, who have been kept without the marriage in their whole life just to take care of someone sick in a Pakistani system.
Two of such care giver ladies told me their story, are now 40 years old, highly educated, one is a headteacher and other is a lecturer in Lahore, Pakistan, have been kept single for this care purpose.
Their marriages had not been arranged. As in Sindh, Pakistan, Male members of the family marry the girls off to Quran for retaining the wealth within the family.
Re: Teenage Caregivers
So sad..but it happens!
Re: Teenage Caregivers
InformedConsent vbmenu_register(“postmenu_4768100”, true);
Yes i have seen similar cases as well in other cultures too. The funny thing is that a time comes when taking care of the parents becomes the purpose of existence of these females. They pass the age of marriage, other siblings are busy in their families. Then keeping these parents alive, no matter how bad condition they are becomes goal of these females. Coz if elderly, bedridden parents die, they comes a huge gap in their lives that cannot be filled.
Re: Teenage Caregivers
w00t?? this sounds like when nuns take a vow to marry jesus or something along those lines, except in their case, they're nuns and religious and probably believe in it and arent forced into it etc.
to do that for retaining wealth is just stupidity and ignorance. poor girls!