- Josh Carter: My grandmother was the first person
to really elevate caregiving
to the point of being a national discussion.
- Rosalynn Carter: I'm very pleased to be here
this afternoon to speak about caregiving,
an issue that is very important to me.
It's been part of my life since I was 12 years old.
- She knows exactly what that life is like.
She knows the needs of that, she knows the stress,
she knows the difficulty.
And she definitely knows the lack of support.
- Mr. Chairman, there are only four kinds of people
in the world.
Those who have been caregivers,
those who currently are caregivers,
those who will be caregivers,
and those who will need caregiving.
That's all of us.
- Josh: That was her message.
Caregiving will touch every person
at some point in their life.
And I've already been all four.
My mom's mother, Dorothy, she was as involved
as you would hope a grandma would be.
But when I was about to start ninth grade,
she had her stroke.
Caregiving became a full-time responsibility
for the whole family.
The toll it took on our family was real.
Taking care of a loved one,
something that we do out of love,
something we can do that is,
that we do out of need and necessity,
but it is hard and it's lonely.
And the resources just aren't there.
I have a sixth-grader, Charlie,
and I have a kindergartner, Jonathan.
When Jonathan was three months old,
we were changing his diaper,
and instead of what you'd normally expect for a diaper,
we saw blood.
Charlie was six, and we tried very hard to make sure
that Charlie knew that he was a loved member of the family.
But every single day was consumed around Jonathan,
consumed around Jonathan's care.
Charlie's going through what I went through
and what my grandmother went through,
learning that caregiving is a necessary part
of a loving family.
When Jonathan got better,
we took Charlie and Jonathan down to see my grandparents.
Jonathan was racing up and down their living room
in his little Razor scooter,
and she thought it was the greatest thing
that she'd ever seen.
All the way through to the very end of her life
and through the deepest parts of her dementia,
she still had that memory.
So that was a lovely gift that Jonathan gave her at the end.
When Grandpa was running for governor
in the late '60s, early '70s,
my grandmother heard stories all over Georgia
of family caregivers.
And Rosa knew exactly what that household looked like.
And she knew that there were things the government could do
to help people that are in such dire needs.
- Caregiving knows no geographic or political boundaries.
Much more needs to be done.
There must be a fundamental shift
in how this nation values and supports caregivers
and caregiving.
- My grandmother always wanted to make sure
that people who are caregivers are heard and are celebrated.
We cannot ignore the needs of the caregiver.
- Announcer: This Caregiving story was made possible
with the support of these generous funders.