For the past few months I’ve been ferrying hubby to physical therapy sessions twice a week (nothing dire or life threatening, just aftermath from a minor-ish car accident) and as you do, you gradually get to know the other people who are doing the same service for others. I mean, you’re sitting around in a waiting room for an hour or so, why not chat instead of staring at your phone all the time? The others are mostly parents driving kids or kids driving their aging parents, with some other couples.
Anyway, one woman I’ve talked with a fair bit is different. She describes herself as in my title, ‘Live-in Casual Housekeeper/Minder’ for a woman in her 70s with some degree of dementia. The woman (“Alice” is not resistant or violent or deliberately self-harming or anything, but she can’t be relied on to do what needs to be done to live independently. Like, she won’t remember she’s supposed to take her pills with her meals, or even remember sometimes that she needs to eat at all. Shopping would be a challenge physically, but especially she isn’t capable of the ‘think of what food items she needs to be able to prepare X number of meals before the next supply run’ type of planning. She’d been slowly losing weight because she’d skip meals if she ran into some snag. Like, I think I’ll make scrambled eggs. Oh, there aren’t any eggs. Well, I’ll eat something else. But then she’d dither a bit, and be distracted by watching a tv show, and then it would no longer be the right time to eat that meal and she’d assume she must have already eaten it and not eat anything until she noticed it was time for lunch or dinner or whatever. Apparently hunger isn’t as clear a prompt later in life. Similar problems with keeping up a house, or having clean clothes ready for wear, anything like that.
The minder (let’s call her Betty) fills in for that sort of ‘executive function.’ She does the ordinary light housework (dusting/vacuuming/washing dishes), shops, prepares simple but healthy meals and nudges Alice into eating them. And a lot of other ‘reminder’ type tasks. As in, she hands her morning and evening pills, she suggests "it’s getting kind of late, maybe you’d like to change into your night gown and brush your teeth now? Then you can read in bed and just fall asleep without having to get up later. She makes sure her prescriptions get refilled and picked up in time, washes clothes, gets her to the hair salon and other appointments, and is simply a ‘competent person’ at hand. Someone who knows to call the plumber or whatever if a repair is needed, someone who will notice if the furnace stops working BEFORE Alice ends up with hypothermia, someone to call for medical help when it’s needed, someone who will remember to fill the canary’s water bottle.
Betty has been taking care of Alice for about three years so far. She says it’s an ideal job for her, because it’s pretty much what she’s always been doing. She was widowed in her early 50s after being a stay at home wife for more than 30 years. She had never held a job since part time as a high schooler, and had no qualifications or special talents. Her husband had supported the household, and they’d lived a nice enough life. Though he’d never made a ton of money, they’d always had ‘enough,’ the bills got paid, they were able to take occasional vacations and all. (No children.) But then he died, and there was not enough savings for her to live off that and Social Security for what might be thirty or forty more years.
Luckily a friend brought her together with one of Alice’s daughters, who was being driven frantic trying to care for Alice long distance on top of her full-time job and her own family, and they struck a deal. Alice gets a regular ‘stipend’ (I don’t know how much), plus room and board, including pretty much everything. Her own bedroom and bathroom, use of all the other rooms in the house, all utilities paid, all the food she wants to eat, telephone and internet and cable tv, use of a car with service and gasoline and such covered. She says pretty much the only things she buys for herself are clothing and her own health insurance.
It sounds like it’s working for them. Alice’s daughter no longer has to constantly worry about her mother and it actually is probably much cheaper than disrupting her life to move Alice to elderly housing that includes housekeeping and similar ‘nursing’ type needs.
It’s also illegal, I’m pretty sure.
Betty doesn’t report the ‘stipend’, let alone the value of the room/board/etc. as income. Alice isn’t paying Social Security or other withholding taxes. Betty says it doesn’t really ‘matter’ since she plans to collect on her husbands SS when the time comes.
So… well, I can’t work up any outrage over it. A woman with a house, who couldn’t live alone. Another woman who likely couldn’t hold down a job that would provide enough money for her to rent a decent place to live and pay her bills. A third woman who was finding it increasingly hard to keep the first woman safe and cared for.
Even if it’s illegal, who is being hurt? Yes, the taxes aren’t being paid. OTOH, the government would likely have to be paying a ton of money towards providing needed services for Alice that her daughter is able to cover in this lower cost way.
When Betty’s husband was a alive did Betty and Mr. Betty have to declare room and board for her?