After decades of caring for loved ones across generations, Kizzye knows that compassion alone cannot cover the cost of care.
Editor’s note: Front and Center is a groundbreaking series of op-eds—published by Ms. and created in partnership with the Magnolia Mother’s Trust—which aims to put front and center the voices of Black women who are affected most by the often-abstract policies currently debated at the national level. The series highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT), which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.
What possibilities could open up for low-income families if financial survival weren’t always top of mind? What dreams would these mothers and families be able to pursue? What activism and community leadership might arise? The series will answer these and other questions, by placing one mother’s story front and center every other week. (The first-person accounts in this series are available for reprint. Find additional guidelines at the end of this story.)
My name is Kizzye, and I have always been a caregiver. That’s just who I am.
I care for my grandkids now—three of them, ages 6, 3 and 7 months—and I’ve cared for a lot of family members over the years. My daughter works at the post office, so I watch the children when she’s at work, when they get out of school and sometimes at night if she needs me. They keep me on my toes, but I love every minute of it.
Before that, I cared for my grandmother, who raised me. And that was tough, because this was when I had just had my own kids. They were going to a sitter so that I could go and care for her. She had cancer and I had to learn how to help her with everything, including her colostomy bag.
When somebody in your family needs help, you help. I was raised to believe that’s what you do.
I also helped care for my grandfather when he had dementia, my aunt when she needed help moving around and my nephew after he got hurt badly in an accident. I even worked with a man at a nursing home, making sure he was clean and had what he needed.
Caregiving has been part of my life for a long time.
I think I got it from my grandmother. She was always taking care of people. She babysat, too. So I grew up seeing that. When somebody in your family needs help, you help. I was raised to believe that’s what you do.
A lot of people talk about caregiving like it’s a burden. I don’t see it that way. If you don’t want to do this work, then this probably isn’t the field for you. I enjoy helping older people. I enjoy helping kids. It matters to me that people are treated right and not handled rough or mean. If it were my family, I would want somebody to care for them with patience and respect.
Older people have feelings, too. They miss being able to do things for themselves. I saw that with the man I sat with at the nursing home. He used to ask me every day if I was going to take him to his house so he could check on his business. I knew he wanted to be home, where he was used to being active and taking care of his wife and his house. Then all of a sudden he couldn’t do that anymore. That’s hard on a person.
I think caregiving is really about being a companion. Sometimes people just need somebody to remind them to take their medicine, help them get up, help them use the bathroom or help them get dressed. Sometimes they need you to clean them like you would clean a baby. That doesn’t make them less than. It just means they need care.
I also think a lot about how people used to look out for one another more. When I was growing up, if a child was in the street, everybody told them to get out. That wasn’t seen as somebody overstepping. That was community. Now people are so quick to say, Don’t talk to my child. But it takes a village. We need each other.
That’s part of why childcare and paid care work matter so much. People act like it’s simple, but it’s not. It costs money. It takes time. And when the people who need care also have to work, that puts families in a tight spot. My daughter looked into daycare, and it was expensive. So she asked me to help, and then she paid me. That worked better for all of us.
Babies can’t help themselves. Kids can’t help themselves. Older adults can’t either. We all get to a point where we need somebody.
Getting guaranteed income helped me too. It gave me some breathing room. I was able to help with gas, help around the house and take care of little things that come up. That kind of support matters because caregiving does not stop just because the bills keep coming.
At the same time, it’s hard to get help when you need it. I’ve had SNAP before, but I have to reapply. I lost my health insurance, and that’s been a problem because I need surgery for fibroids. I’ve had to put it off because I can’t pay for it right now. That’s how it is for a lot of people—you make too much for one thing and not enough for another. Then you just end up stuck in the middle.
I don’t like that. Nobody should have to keep fighting this hard just to stay afloat.
But I still believe in taking care of people. Babies can’t help themselves. Kids can’t help themselves. Older adults can’t either. We all get to a point where we need somebody. So I keep doing what I do, because this is my purpose. I care for my people, and I do it with love.
Front and Center pieces are free to republish, under the following guidelines:
- At the top of your reprint, include a line that reads: “Front and Center is a series of op-eds published by Ms. magazine and created in partnership with Springboard to Opportunities and Magnolia Mother’s Trust.“
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Have questions on the series? Read more here, and direct specific questions to Katie Fleischer at kfleischer@msmagazine.com.
