The Wall Street Journal - 23 May 1996
Sue Shellenbarger

When his mother fell ill with Parkinson's dementia complex and his father moved out, Mr. LaVaccare, then in his teens, changed career goals from science to business so he could avoid graduate school and help care for her.

He landed a job as an accountant at a Big Six firm and lived with friends in Chicago's trendy Lincoln Park area. But it was too hard to manage his mother's care, so at 23 he moved in with his mother in a nearby neighborhood. He missed out on the lifestyle of a successful young bachelor. But he hung in as a primary care-giver for four years, when family members stepped in so he could attend medical school.

Does he regret the years of sacrifice? No, says Mr. LaVaccare, now 30 years old. "I felt helping out at home was more important."

There are a lot more John LaVaccares out there than you think. A new study of 1,000 people by the National Council on the Aging and John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance has surprised long-term care experts by showing that 24% of people under 32 have provided, or are providing, hands-on, long-term care to a family member or friend. That compares with 31% of the total population who has done so.

The study matches findings by Maury Hanigan of Hanigan Consulting Group, New York human-resource consultants, showing "a strong sense of family, and a high priority placed on family" among Generation Xers. Those values often surprise employers trying to hire or transfer young workers, she adds.

The study also proves, again, that stereotypes are nearly useless in predicting the family conflicts of today's work force. As families fragment, scatter and re-form in nontraditional patterns, grandchildren often find themselves caring for grandparents; that was the case among 59% of the Generation X care-givers surveyed.

OTHER FACTORS: the AIDS epidemic and a trend toward adult children living with parents longer, says Leslie Faught of Working Solutions, Portland, Ore.

Behind the statistics lie poignant stories of young care-givers even more isolated than their older counterparts. "If you're 21 or 22 and you're caring for somebody who is ill, how can your friends relate to you? They're starting careers, going to school, getting married, and you're tied to a bedpan," says Suzanne Mintz of the National Family Caregivers Association, Kensington, Md.

In his 20s, Mr. LaVaccare missed the neighborhood basketball games and some of the dating his friends enjoyed. Though he was struggling to juggle care-giving with his demanding job, he didn't talk about his family role with co-workers. He became so immersed in it that he nearly lost his sense of self.

Only after he began using the resources at Alzheimer's Association, a national organization based in Chicago, did he understand "that I had my own life," he says. He attended a support group, where older care-givers encouraged him to meet his own needs. Now, as he completes medical school at University of Chicago, he says he's glad he realized "a terminal illness isn't a good focal point for your life at age 23."

Of all care-givers, the under-36 age group are the most likely to be depressed, says Lynn Friss Feinberg of the Family Caregivers Alliance, a nonprofit resource group in San Francisco. Among the care-givers the Alliance has helped, more Generation Xers than any other group needed additional medical care themselves and 25% had to quit jobs to provide care.

Heather Urban, 28, an administrative assistant for a Boston nonprofit concern, was ready to interview for higher-paying jobs when her father, a 61-year-old widower, had a disabling stroke. To keep him out of a government-funded nursing home, she quit her job and moved to California to care for him.

AFTER SHE brought her father home from the hospital, he grew depressed and began waking her up repeatedly through the night for help. Exhausted, "I started to just go mental," says Ms. Urban. "I was crying all the time."

Her father's doctor intervened, treating him for depression and insisting she spend at least an hour a day away from the house. She joined a swim class and a theater group. But she has given up dating. The men she knows "really weren't accepting of my situation," she says. She still misses the camaraderie of coworkers at her job; "I miss feeling like there's some reason for me to be, besides Dad."

Other Generation X care-givers must cut back at work at a time when they would like to go all-out for career. Helen Wong, 24, was working overtime at an environmental-cleanup company and hoping to land a job as a government auditor when her father had a stroke. Ms. Wong, who lives at her parents' home, was so swamped by insurance paperwork and helping her father that she cut back overtime.

When she got the job offer she had hoped for, she hesitated. It required travel. "What if something happens when I'm gone?" she worried. She took it, but schedules her days so tightly that she has no time for herself. On business trips, she calls home daily and keeps lists of "10,000 things" to do when she returns.

Ms. Wong sometimes yearns for a more carefree lifestyle. But she finds her parents' plight heartbreaking, she says. "People say to me, `Why don't you just move out?' But if I did, I wouldn't have peace of mind."

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