“If we had disability [benefits]...enough to receive enough help, we could live a normal life that any family deserves.'
her mom’s spinal cord and makes it difficult for her to walk without assistance. As a single parent for most of Lizzie’s life, Lizzie’s mom was the primary caregiver for her and both her sisters — but the girls were their mom’s caregivers, too.
The responsibilities of maintaining the household and caring for their mother were shared between the sisters. Now 23 years old and living in New York City, Lizzie, who asked to withhold her last name to protect her family’s privacy, says that, early on, much of the weight fell on her oldest sister. As she and her younger sister became old enough to help out more, the balance shifted.
“You get paid $13 an hour,” says Lizzie. “There's really nothing that draws you into it besides the fact that you're like, I'm gonna do this anyway, right? So I might as well get $13 and jump through all the hoops.” , says part of the work to better support youth caregivers is simply raising awareness about the population.
“You could never really leave my grandma and my aunt alone because my grandma, she started having this really bad habit of eating her pillows. She would tell me it was eggs and I had to fish the pillow stuffing out of her mouth,” Sofia explains. “So I always had to be checking in, making sure she was not eating the furniture.