When helping your parents becomes part of the working week
National Carers Week next month is a reminder that more than three million Australians provide unpaid care to a family member or friend. This year’s theme, Care for a carer: Making carers visible, is particularly relevant for a group whose caring responsibilities can be easy to overlook: people supporting ageing parents while also working, raising children and managing their own households.
For many people, caring for an ageing parent does not begin with a major decision. It starts with a lift to an appointment, picking up groceries or helping around the house, then gradually expands into more phone calls, paperwork, medications, appointments and the growing sense that your parents need a little more help than they used to.
None of it necessarily feels like “care” at first, but over time it can become a significant part of the working week.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows there are more than three million unpaid carers in Australia, with an average age of 50. Almost one in four primary carers supports a parent, and nearly 60% of those carers are aged between 45 and 64.
For many, this is the reality of the sandwich generation: people supporting ageing parents while also raising children, working and managing the responsibilities of their own household.
Here in Port Macquarie-Hastings, where almost 30% of the population is already aged 65 or over, that pressure is likely to become increasingly familiar.
One of our own employees knows that balance well. In her 30’s, she is working, raising children and supporting ageing parents as their needs change.
“When Mum’s health declined and she started having regular hospital admissions, we realised she needed more help. I was working full time, raising two children and studying, and with my sister living six hours away, a lot of the responsibility at home fell to me.”
Her experience will be familiar to many families because there is rarely one moment when someone suddenly “needs aged care”. Instead, families gradually fill the gaps. A daughter takes over the shopping, a son handles the garden, someone organises appointments, and someone else becomes the person everyone calls when something goes wrong.
For many families, that is exactly what they want to do. The pressure comes when that support starts to rely too heavily on one or two people who are already balancing work, children and their own lives.
This is where home care can make a practical difference. It might mean help with cleaning or gardening, transport, personal care, nursing or more complex support as health needs change. The value is not only in getting those tasks done; it can help an older person remain independent for longer while reducing some of the practical load carried by family.
“Since Mum has been receiving home care, it has taken a lot of the mental load off me. I know the house is being cleaned, Mum and Dad are being checked on regularly, and after her recent surgery, a nurse was able to visit at home instead of Dad having to get her to the wound clinic.”
That matters because most older Australians want to remain at home. Research cited by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found 80% wanted to stay in their current home and 62% wanted to receive aged care services in the community.
If that is what older Australians want, the challenge is not simply how we deliver more care at home. It is how we make that sustainable for the families who are often providing much of the support around it.
At St Agnes’ Catholic Parish, our home care team supports people across the Port Macquarie-Hastings region with everyday assistance, personal care, transport, nursing and other support based around individual needs.
National Carers Week is an opportunity to recognise the enormous contribution unpaid carers make, but also to consider what sits around them. As our community continues to age, home care will increasingly play a role not only in helping older people remain at home, but in helping the sandwich generation continue to work, raise families and be there for the people they care about.
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