I agree with Member of Parliament Carrie Tan’s call for the Government to ensure that people who leave the workforce to become full-time caregivers have enough retirement savings for their old age. (”Parliament: MP proposes new income support scheme for full-time caregivers”; Feb 2)

She added that a financial support scheme for caregivers would help those displaced from the workforce — especially women — due to our ageing population and the rising needs of eldercare.

Ms Tan’s comments were necessary and timely.

Last year, I worked with The Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) to produce a comedic monologue entitled Am I Old?, on the many difficulties faced by family caregivers, including financial challenges while grappling with their own ageing.

We ran shows in-person or on Zoom, with around 500 attendees in total.

One scene that always elicited a response was when my character pulled out a handwritten timetable and walked the audience through the daily routine of a caregiver that almost totally centred on her mother’s needs.

This caregiver who was interviewed as part of my research for the gig has been taking care of her mother by herself for the past 10 years.

She is not the only child but the responsibility fell on her because she is a single daughter.

Here is a glimpse into her daily routine, with or without a helper.

The day begins at 7.30am when she has to take the mother to the toilet, make breakfast and feed her mother or sit with her while ensuring she takes her medication.

Then she showers her mother and takes her own breakfast.

From mid-morning to after lunch, the daughter usually goes grocery shopping and plays some games with the mother, cooks and cleans the house.

Lunch is at 2pm. After a nap, it is tea time and her mother has to take another dose of medication.

By 6pm, they head out for a stroll and go to the senior citizen corner.

The mother goes to bed around 8pm while the daughter does the laundry after that and then sleeps by 10pm.

Some people tend to think of caregivers as being able to mostly relax at home simply because they are not formally employed. They believe that caregiving is easier than going to work each day.

However, our audience members — many of whom were caregivers themselves — strongly related to that scene of the timetable.

After each show, some of them reached out to me to share stories of careers cut short, savings depleted and anxieties skyrocketing due to caregiving.

It was clear that many of them had not had an outlet to articulate these experiences in depth before. The performance really opened my eyes to how similar caregivers’ problems are, across the board.

This is why I commend Ms Tan’s suggestion. Providing caregivers with a stable source of financial aid will help to ease much of the stress involved with the role.

It will provide both practical support and recognition for the work caregivers do, which all too often seems thankless.

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