According to an article that was released by the American Psychological Association that was published a couple days ago, “Americans believe volunteering to help strangers contributes more to society than providing care for family or friends”.
“And even though people with lower socioeconomic status spent more time helping their friends and family, they said they contributed less to society than people with higher socioeconomic status who volunteered to help strangers… as a society, we need a broader idea of what counts as a meaningful contribution…”
Yeah, and as caregivers (paid and unpaid), we already knew this.
Paid caregiving is usually not paid well and doesn’t offer many benefits, and for unpaid caregivers, when someone is in that position where they’re caring for others for free, it’s usually a family member and they’re caring for them around the clock, non-stop. If you’ve never cared for someone like this, it’s really hard to understand an unpaid caregiver. I think that’s why a lot of people can’t relate to the non-paid caregiver struggles and therefore don’t value the work that we do.