Promotion?

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if being a parent carer was rewarded in the way paid employment was. We’d be paid for a start, that would be nice. But we’d also have someone (assuming a good workplace here), line managing us, supporting us, training us, having regular catch ups with us to check in.

We’d likely be around a team of other people doing similar roles, so we would not feel alone, we’d have people to ask when we got stuck.

As the years went by and our experience and skills grew, we’d be rewarded with positive feedback about our achievements, we’d get promotions. Maybe get a title such as ‘manager’ ‘head of’ ‘lead’ or even CEO.

These inputs and recognitions would likely validate what we were doing, boost our confidence and help us reflect and feel pride in what we do. It would look impressive on a LinkedIn profile and people would take an interest at a dinner party.

The reality is that we are growing, progressing and gaining incredible new, and transferable, skills but it goes largely unrecognised, except maybe sometimes by friends or family.

The difference is that those people don’t live it so, while meaning well, they don’t fully know what they are saying ‘you’re doing so well’ for.

While we can’t have the full scenario above, we can connect with our ‘teammates’ on forums, through charities and meet ups. We can continue to hope that carers are recognised for what we do and may, one day, be adequately paid (thank you to charities such as Carers UK who advocate for this on our behalf).

In the meantime, I have added my caring role to my LinkedIn (I am lucky enough to have a supportive employer who enables me to progress my career). I regularly reference it in my professional life.

So many of my skills and so much of my knowledge and insight is useful in my other job and beyond. My husband and I have also given ourselves job titles (we went right in at the top).

He is Head of Medical and I am Head of Social Care and Education. We split the admin load in this way too. Next step, business cards and maybe some sort of official looking lanyard to swing around authoritatively.

Joking aside, there is an urgent need for more recognition and support for carers. A ‘well done’, no matter how heartfelt, does not cut it.