Balancing Work and Caring Responsibilities: What Happens to You?

I wrote something yesterday about working while caring for a young person with Type 1 diabetes.

It was, unsurprisingly, something I could write from personal experience.

I'm a parent-carer. I've spent years figuring out how to make work fit around appointments, school, emergencies, disrupted nights and all the other things that come with caring for a child with Type 1.

But once I'd finished writing it, I found myself thinking about something else.

This isn't just a Type 1 diabetes problem.

The challenges of balancing work and caring responsibilities can affect all sorts of working carers, whether you're caring for a child, a partner, a parent or another relative - maybe even a friend.

Because I've seen the same thing happening to people around me in all sorts of different circumstances.

Not just within my own family, but with friends, colleagues and acquaintances too.

Someone might start out with a fairly ordinary life.

Work. Family. Friends. Holidays. Weekends. All the usual things that make up your life.

And then something changes.

A parent becomes ill.

A partner needs more support.

A child needs significantly more care than they did before.

A relative has an accident or develops a long-term condition.

Sometimes it happens almost overnight.

Sometimes it's much slower.

A few more appointments.

A few more phone calls.

A bit more organising.

A little more responsibility.

And then a little more.

Until one day, you realise that caring has become a full-time job that you're fitting around your actual full-time job.

And somehow, you're still expected to keep everything else going too.

The bit nobody really sees

The practical things are often obvious.

The appointments.

The phone calls.

The journeys.

The paperwork.

The medication.

The arrangements that need making.

The things that need remembering.

But there's another part of caring that's much harder to see.

The constant mental background noise.

What needs doing next?

Who needs calling?

What happens if...?

Have I remembered...?

Can I get this done before work?

What if something happens while I'm at work?

And while you're thinking about all of that, you're still trying to do your job.

Meet your deadlines.

Answer your emails.

Attend the meeting.

Be a decent colleague.

Be a partner.

Be a parent.

Be a friend.

Keep the house vaguely functioning.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, there's you.

Except you're often the person who gets pushed furthest down the list.

You get very good at making it work

I think this is one of the things that can make caring particularly difficult.

You don't necessarily feel as though you've made a conscious decision to put your own needs aside.

You just... do it.

Something needs doing, so you do it.

Someone needs you, so you go.

There's an appointment, so you rearrange your day.

There's a problem at work, so you work around it.

You use annual leave.

You cancel something.

You put off something you wanted to do.

You tell yourself you'll deal with it later.

And because you've managed to make it work, everyone assumes it's working.

Including you, sometimes.

Until you realise that you can't remember the last time you did something simply because you wanted to.

Not because it fitted around someone else's needs.

Not because you had a spare ten minutes between everything else.

Not because you were finally allowed to.

Just because you wanted to.

And this isn't about comparing whose caring is harder

There are huge differences between caring for a child with Type 1 diabetes, supporting a parent with dementia, caring for a partner with a long-term illness or supporting a child with additional needs.

The practical realities are completely different.

I'm not suggesting they're the same.

But I do think there can be a common thread.

You become so focused on keeping everyone and everything else going that you stop asking what you need.

And sometimes you don't even know what you need anymore.

Because you've been adapting for so long.

So what about you?

I'm not going to tell you to practise more self-care.

You probably don't need another thing on your to-do list.

And I'm certainly not going to suggest you simply find an hour for yourself every day. If you've got caring responsibilities, you probably just laughed at that. (Even I had to have a word with myself when I wrote it!)

But I do think it's worth stopping for a moment and asking yourself a few questions.

What is caring asking of me right now?

What impact is it having on me?

What do I actually need?

And perhaps most importantly:

What could make things work better?

It doesn't have to be a dramatic life overhaul.

It might be something small.

A conversation you need to have.

Something you need to stop doing.

Something you need to ask for.

A boundary you haven't quite managed to put in place.

Or simply admitting that something isn't working particularly well anymore.

You don't have to have the answer before you start asking the question.

You matter in this too

You become so focused on balancing work, caring and everything else that you stop asking what you need for yourself.

There's always someone who needs you more.

Something else that needs doing.

Something else that's more urgent.

But your needs don't become less important because someone else needs your care.

And you don't have to wait until you're completely overwhelmed before you start thinking about what might need to change.

That's actually one of the reasons I created Working & Caring: A Little Space to Think.

It isn't another thing giant thing you need to work through.

It's simply a few prompts to help you stop for a moment and think about you.

You can sit down with it when you have ten minutes. Or read it with a cup of tea. Or download it now and come back to it when you actually have a minute to yourself.

It's not about telling you how to care for someone else.

It's about giving you a little space to think about you.

What is caring asking of you?

What's working?

What's not?

What do you need?

And what might make things a little easier?

Download your copy of Working & Caring: A Little Space to Think.

Because somewhere in all the organising, supporting, worrying, working and keeping everything else moving...

you are still in there too.

When did you last get ten minutes that was entirely yours?