NEWS FEATURE: More Workers Using Family Leave to Care for a Parent

c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When doctors told the Young brothers their mother’s emphysema would kill her within a year, each son made a big decision. Rich Young and his wife invited her to come live with them in their Robbinsville, N.J., home. Dennis Young, who lived in Maryland, skipped work nearly every Friday […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When doctors told the Young brothers their mother’s emphysema would kill her within a year, each son made a big decision.

Rich Young and his wife invited her to come live with them in their Robbinsville, N.J., home.


Dennis Young, who lived in Maryland, skipped work nearly every Friday to spend a three-day weekend in New Jersey, where he took his scooter-bound mother on outings to restaurants, shows or simply the park. Gradually, as her health diminished, he used the time just to be at her side.

To do all that and stay employed, he used the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Family leave?

Isn’t that for babies?

Babies _ and the parents who needed job-protected leave to care for them _ were certainly in the spotlight when Congress debated the proposed legislation in the ’80s.

Yet care of an aging parent now is one of the fastest-growing uses of the law. It jumped 50 percent from 1995 to 2000 and now tops both care for an ill spouse and care for an ill child.

“We wanted to pass this law, so I imagine we were using all the arguments that would resonate with the general public,” said Deven McGraw, policy counsel for the National Partnership for Women and Families in Washington, D.C. The measure was expanded to include sick children, parents and spouses, so family leave wouldn’t be seen as solely a women’s issue.

The recent surge in elder care leaves is not unexpected; experts predicted it for years. Its arrival was somewhat forestalled, however, by the great strides in the health of today’s seniors.

As life expectancy increases, more frail elderly are living into their 80s and 90s. In addition, today’s elderly are the very generation of parents that produced the baby boom. This translates to more adult children spending time at work worrying about mom’s bypass surgery.


“It’s pure demographics,” said Diane Piktialis, work-life products director for Ceridian Corp., which provides corporations with elder-care resource and referral services.

Last year, for the first time, there were more requests for Ceridian’s pamphlet on elder care than for their one on child care.

Merck & Co., the pharmaceutical giant, saw a 41 percent jump in elder-care leaves from 2002 to 2003. At Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G), New Jersey’s largest publicly owned utility, half of all leaves now taken are to care for a relative other than a baby _ an ill parent, spouse or child.

“It’s a trend that’s only going to increase,” said McGraw, noting that almost two-thirds of Americans under the age of 60 expect to be responsible for the care of an elderly relative in the next 10 years.

Employees 50 to 64 years old _ typically beyond their maternity-leave years _ showed the biggest jump in use of the family leave law, according to a 2000 U.S. Department of Labor survey.

At this point, however, elder care leaves remain uncommon, say human resource directors and elder-care support group leaders. More people need one than take one. The most common obstacle is being unable to afford it. Most leaves are unpaid; the law’s major benefit is job protection.


How did they cope? The most common response from survey respondents was “Just lived with it/Suffered through it.”

Angie Guydish, now director of an assisted-living center in Flemington, N.J., took a family leave in 1997 to spend the last three months of her mother’s life at her side in Arizona. They knew she was entering the final stage of colon cancer.

“It was the best three months that my mother and I spent together. We really enjoyed it. We’d go visit with the grandkids, or just talk,” she recalled. The experience was so rewarding she felt bad for her siblings who weren’t able to have that time together.

Her husband and married daughter manned the home front, caring for three teenage boys and three foster children. The leave was unpaid once she depleted her vacation and sick time. Despite those practical obstacles, the leave was well worth it, she said. “If anybody could do it, I’d recommend it.”

Elder care resembles child care in that it can dent employee productivity. Employees may have unplanned absences or distractions, or request schedule changes to provide coverage at home. They may have to scramble to find back-up care, turn down promotions or cut back to part-time work.

Accommodating those employees costs between $11.4 billion and $29 billion per year in lost productivity, according to the 1997 MetLife Study of Employer Costs for Working Caregivers.


Those with daily caregiving tasks, such as bathing or providing meals for an aging relative, routinely miss 50 hours of work a year, said Charles Bowman, manager of workforce strategies and performance for Verizon. “It could be something as simple as “Grandpa was combative this morning and it took me an extra 30 minutes to get him dressed,”’ he said.

As with child care, employees often seek to switch work schedules so they can be free to attend doctor appointments or so they can reduce the time _ and cost _ of home health aide shifts.

The similarities to child care end there, though.

“Elder care tends to be much more of an emotional experience,” said Piktialis of Ceridian Corp. “When your parents become dependent on you, it totally changes the dynamic of the relationship.”

Underlying child care are hope and optimism about each new milestone. “With elder care, it’s the opposite,” she said. “It brings up their mortality; it brings up your mortality.”

It’s also far less predictable than child-care needs, which follow the child’s developmental stages through infancy to after-school care. The needs of elderly parents are more varied, both in what will happen and when, she said.

On top of that, it can be accompanied by two pitfalls: Unlike child care, caregivers can’t make unilateral decisions. They must share decision-making with the parent. Looking over their shoulder, meanwhile, may be a sibling who disagrees with what kind of care is necessary.


“It’s much more complicated and much more emotional,” Piktialis said.

It is also more crisis-driven, said Sherrill Curtis, a human resources consultant through her Bergen, N.J.-based company, The HR Department.

“This isn’t something that just goes away,” she said. “Employees may be dealing with a long, drawn-out disease of the mind or body. They can be at work and get the phone call, and it’s, “Oh my God, Mom fell today.’ They never know what’s coming.”

Dennis Young, the son who came up from Maryland each week, did not use his family leave to manage the details of his mother’s medical care, but rather to visit with her and enjoy the remaining time they had together. In the process, he was able to offer a break to his brother and sister-in-law, who were providing round-the-clock care. Their mother died last October.

“I’m glad I did it,” he said. “I was able to say goodbye to my mother, to help her and kind of pay her back for all the things she did for me.”

The leave also helped both brothers avoid placement in a nursing home.

A drug and alcohol counselor employed by Montgomery County, Dennis Young used what is called “intermittent” leave, in which the days off are spread out. His employers liked the predictability of his absences, he said; it was easier to schedule replacements for him.

In one important respect, his leave was unusual, for throughout most of it he was paid under the county’s sick-day policy.


He believes the leave helped him stay more productive after his mother’s death. “It made the transition of her death a little bit easier,” he said. “I probably would’ve needed at least a month otherwise. The Family Leave Act allowed me to get emotionally and psychologically prepared for her death.”

DEA PH/JL END O’BRIEN

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