How the label can help you

Why Identifying Yourself or Others as a Care Partner or Caregiver Matters

When a daughter, son, partner, spouse or friend shifts into being a care partner or caregiver, their role expands as they take on more responsibilities. Caregiving is now a normative and extended life stage we can each expect to occupy for years and for multiple care recipients. If this is happening to you or has happened, identifying as a caregiver can help you understand why you’re so tired! It can also validate your need to learn caregiving skills, to better manage the emotions that swirl around caregiving experiences, to seek caregiving resources and importantly, to allow respite from your caregiving responsibilities.

By the way, outside the U.S. carer is the term most often used, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as, “someone who takes care of a person who is young, old, or sick” (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/carer Retrieved May 11, 2023).

The term We Never Use

We never use the term caretaker, which we equate with taking care of a house or property.