Men Who Care for Partners They Love

Research reported on ‘The Pulse’ on 11 Feb 10 (see link, below) describes the stress that many older men who are caring for a partner with dementia, experience. As we have sadly come to expect here in Australia, while the caring role is much lionised, it is also grossly under-supported. Having been a carer myself for my mother, who suffered with early onset dementia from 1984 until her death in 1996, I well know that information and support services are sorely lacking. Moreover, there remains amongst health and community service providers a strong gender bias, disbelieving of the reality that men can and indeed do ‘care’. I recall that workers actually had to see the clean house, and my well-fed and well-presented mother, before they actually accepted that I was capable of doing a good job. It is too much of a cop-out, and I see it here in this article, that mammoth gaps in resourcing carers can be pushed aside to instead ramble on about how those stubborn qualities of men shine through. Men and women who care for a relative with dementia, or any other ultimately terminal illness, must for their own well-being and for the continuance of their role, hold it all together. The energy put into staying on track is not a gendered characteristic but a situational imperative.  

http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2010/02/11/2816341.htm