While traditional family institutions were designed in a manner that older people were supposed to provide support to the young, there surprising statistical reports all over the world of young people taking care of older people. Widdows (2014) stresses that it may surprise people to know that there is a significant number of young people who are barely out of their teens and have become caregivers for their grandparents. Many of these grandchildren are raised by their grandparents and live closer to them than other family members. It is for this reason that they feel that they develop the ‘caregiver personality.’ For whatever reason that turns grandchildren into caregivers, young people face some obstacles that are sometimes very overwhelming for their young age. For example, Widdows (2014) reports a recent case of a young woman who had problems accessing health information of her grandfather since the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) could now allow her because of lacking proper paperwork. From a sociological perspective, the problem here is that grandparents understand that no other family is available to help them and thus grandchildren are frightened to work on the challenge with the help of a mature mentor (Edlin et al. 2015).This essay will demonstrate that young caregivers are faced with some challenges when caring for their grandchildren, which affect them in their senior if they are not addressed properly.
People Impacted By This Challenge
Various reports show that many young people, the millennials, are becoming caregivers when they reach 27 years and are likely to be males or females. These young adults are caring for older people who are aged sixty years and above, who are often elderly people who need help with a physical condition. In most cases, the care millennial generations are giving to the older people is same to that of a typical caregiver. Although they spend a shorter time caring for the elderly, reports show that they spend 20 hours a week helping them with daily living and personal care without getting additional support (Patel & Rushefsky, 2015). Grandchildren provide what researchers call primary care, which involves helping grandparents with both, hands-on and decision making. According to Patel and Rushefsky (2015), one out of twelve caregivers is grandchild who is providing primary care to grandparents while 8 percent are caregivers who are over the age of 18 years. Consequently, this translated to about 5 million grandchildren who are caring for grandparents all over the world. Although most people expect to care for their grandparents at some time in life, providing care earlier in life leads to negative outcomes, which include delayed education, careers, parenthood, and romantic relationships.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Dynamics Related To This Challenge
One of the challenges that face young caregivers is that they must take a pragmatic approach when caring for them and at the same time, this relationship is emotionally involving. Young caregivers will often view grandparents as their mentor and teacher, despite being allowed to care for them. For example, grandparents would want to protect their grandchildren by imparting some wisdom onto them. Regardless, Patel and Rushefsky (2015) elaborate that grandchildren always have a positive view of their role as caregivers and try to be compassionate to them after a parent or a grandparent dies. Most of them see the idea of caregiving as reciprocal, such that they are caring for a grandparent who cared for them when they were young. In some instances, grandparents want their grandchildren to be happy for them because there is a time they will not be around. Thus, this becomes some kind of a reciprocal relationship where grandchildren offer to care for the elderly because they will miss them when they are gone. The type of relationship has other positive impacts on families, such as it helps grandchildren to learn about themselves and their family, thus strengthening the bond within the extended family (Patel & Rushefsky, 2015). However, it can have a negative effect on families. For example, millennial caregivers are twice as likely as older people to care for grandparents with emotional and mental problems. Such a burden puts an emotional strain on younger caregivers, as well as financial burden as they have to modify the home of the elderly and pat food and other costs. Other young caregivers find themselves earning less income since they have to check in on their grandparents to see if they are well.
Risk Factors at the Societal, Community, Family, and Individual Levels
At the individual level, young caregivers face various risks that center around how they allocate their time for other activities, including creating time for their relationships and friends. Cutler and Narang (2013) assert that young caregivers can fail to maintain an emotional relationship with their intimate partners when they spend hours cleaning and cooking for the elderly people. At the community level, an increase in the number of grandparents who are cared for by their grandchildren can lead to an increased life dependency, which causes the family size to shrink as most of the efforts are devoted to caring of the older populations (Cutler & Narang, 2013). At the societal level, caregiving issues such as stress, especially among busy young adults, are addressed in the field of gerontology. Young caregivers lack adequate time to socialize with their mates since they spend a lot of time with their grandparents.
Protective Factors That May Help the Family Cope With the Related
There are certain protective factors that help young caregivers mitigate risks that are associated with caring for their grandparents. At the individual level, grandparents strengthen the emotional bond with their grandchildren, which some young caregivers seem to enjoy. At the community level, grandparents help in organizing social events where they teach families values and cultures of their background families, helping them to understand some social problems which are caused by cultural differences among communities (Patel & Rushefsky, 2015). At the societal level, most cultures emphasize the role of taking care of grandparents as important to young people, as it prepares them to become responsible parents. As a result, young caregivers tend to take this responsibility as a part of a lifetime lesson despites the challenges they face when caring for the older people.
Influence of culture and diversity
The choice of caregivers to stay with their grandparents is influenced by their cultural background. For example, the most predominant group of elderly people that co-resides with grandchildren is related to the Aboriginal identity. This type of relationship is common among the aboriginal culture because of the affiliation with traditional Aboriginal spirituality, through which members believe that staying with grandparents delivers blessings to young families (Patel & Rushefsky, 2015). There is also a higher proportion of Sikh or Indian people who stay with grandparents. People from these cultures believe that staying with grandparents is a religious responsibility; therefore, proper respect should be accorded to them.
Diversity influences the choice of grandchildren to live with their grandparents in a number of ways. Patel and Rushefsky (2015) reveal that most grandparents who live with their grandchildren are married in a common-law union. Widowed grandparents prefer to live with their grandparents, most of who are at least 45 years, which reflects the ages of these grandparents. Additional groups of grandparents who choose to live with their grandparents are either divorced, separated, or have never married.
Lifespan Development and Life Course Perspective Theories
The dependency relationship that exists between grandparents and grandchildren can be understood by examining various theories, which include the programmed theory, the damage or error theory, and the symbolic interactionism theory. The programmed theory imply as people age, they follow a biological timetable which systems that are responsible for maintaining and repairing damaged tissues. The error theory offers a psychological explanation of aging whereby living organisms that cumulatively induce damage at various levels, contribute to the aging process (Saltman, 2011). The symbolic interactionism theory offers the social, cultural, and spiritual development across the lifespan of human beings. The theory illustrates that there are different reasons why grandchildren assist with instrumental activities of the aging people. For example, some cultures promote family gathering where grandchildren engage in caring of the elderly people. There are societal values, such as making grandparent happy, which are also related to some religious aspects of blessing future generations (Saltman, 2011). The symbolic interactionism theory helps to understand why grandchildren are able to develop coping mechanisms which allow them to be successful caregivers.
Interventions for This Life Challenge
Examples of services that been used to help families to effectively address this problem include the dual-faceted relationship programs. This programs focus on two aspects of caregiving, namely the logistic relationship, and the compassionate relationship. For example, the Medicare program takes care of all organizational and healthcare aspects of caregiving and also enlists grandparents to social workers’ activities where they are give compassionate relationship (Philpott, 2016). This helps to young caregivers to balance their involvement with grandparents, allowing them to reduce constraints in their incomes and devote time for other activities. The second strategy is the team approach grandchildren partner with their grandparents’ caregivers, helping family members so that the burden of care does not fall on one person (Philpott, 2016). The team approach includes professional caregivers who become a part of the extended family. The idea is that caregivers is that the can handle personal values, such as personal hygiene, dressing, and bathing.
How I Would Apply My Social Work Experience
Overall, caring for grandparents is a positive experience and I would use what I have learned to solve major challenges that grandparents face. For example, I would like to help grandchildren to make proper housing decisions for their grandparents based on care needs, monthly budget, and the size of the community. Most importantly, I would remember to give them hands-on care and engage them in activities that will make them socially active. I would also help them to apply for long-term health coverage services such as Medicaid program and organize individualized nursing care.
Majority of grandchildren who live with their grandparents are mostly single parents, followed by a portion of young couples. Most grandparents are unable to work and earn money, thus they rely on grandchildren for financial assistance. While studies have shown that most families choose to care for older people as a part of their cultural obligations, recent studies have shown that this is putting a heavy burden on young families. Also, middle family composition also varies across diversity characteristics. However, when young caregivers spend a lot of their time caring for their grandparents, this has implications for how they deal with intimate relationships during senior years. Therefore, this is a new area of research that needs attention so as to solve socio-cultural challenges that affect young caregivers.
References
Cutler, N. R., & Narang, P. K. (2013). Drug studies in the elderly: Methodological concerns . New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.
Edlin, R., McCabe, C., Hulme, C., Hall, P., & Wright, J. (2015). Cost effectiveness modelling for health technology assessment: A practical course . Leeds: Springer.
Patel, K., & Rushefsky, M. E. (2015). Health care in america: Separate and unequal . New York, NY: Routledge.
Philpott, D. (2016). Critical government documents on health care . Forbes Boulevard: Rowman & Littlefield.
Saltman, R. B. (2011). Health systems, health, wealth and societal well-being: Assessing the case for investing in health systems : Assessing the case for investing in health systems . London: McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Widdows, H. (2014). Global ethics: An introduction . New York, NY: Routledge.
