Keeping mum at work

Caring for parents comes with a stigma not associated with childcare. Photo: Graham Turner

Ros Coward is Professor of journalism at Roehampton University - a job she combines with caring for her mother. It's a difficult juggling act, as she explains:

At a recent work meeting one of the men got up abruptly, announced he had to "pick up the kids" and exited. I found myself feeling aggrieved. I too had been clock-watching, knowing I needed to check on my mother. But I couldn't imagine heading out of the door saying: "I've just got to check my old Mum has got home safely, eaten some food and not got cold."

Among the many difficulties that come with caring for an elderly parent is that it's a task with little public recognition and almost no status. After years of feminist campaigning around childcare, its easy for that man. He can fulfill his responsibilities while claiming kudos as a good father. But caring for your elderly mum doesn't have that recognition. It's not seen, as childcare now is by decent employers, as something which needs to be accommodated.

Issues around caring for the elderly are only just becoming public, and most debate focuses on a "lack of dignity" for them. There is almost no public recognition of the complexities of caring for older people, especially those like my mother in that "in-between state". She still lives alone but increasingly requires someone to keep her going.

There's also a taboo about raising these issues. I'm reticent in the workplace because unlike rushing off for childcare, rushing off to help your Mum infects you by association with the contempt our society as a whole feels towards old age.

Attitudes have to change and we need a campaign to take them on. Life expectancy is rising and complex illnesses associated with prolonged ageing are increasing. Far from being easier than looking after kids, looking after an elderly parent is massively more difficult. You don't care for them as you care for children - you're not able to organise their time or find someone in loco parentis in your absence.

It's more like the responsibilities that come with teenagers, and delinquent ones at that. My mother still gets around on her own but is constantly getting into scrapes - shutting herself out, burning pans, going missing. Her needs are unpredictable, disruptive, impossible to plan for.

The care she has is haphazard and uncoordinated. The GP, social services, the diabetic clinic, physiotherapy and a psycho-geriatric consultant all intervene around my mother. I could fill up my time solely with their appointments. So long as they tick off their contribution, they don't worry about who holds the bits together.

A woman also looking after her elderly parents recently told me it was the "most rewarding" thing she could be doing with her life right now. My situation has its rewards. It can be funny and has allowed me to have a more loving relationship with my mother who, in ageing, has lost some of her "edge".

But to say it's the most rewarding thing I could be doing right now would be a total untruth. Unlike caring for children, which is all about investing in the future, this feels like a one way road towards sadness and loss.