Labor Day has been around since the late 1800s, created to recognize the social and economic achievements of American workers. It became a federal holiday in 1894. Which makes today as good a day as any to talk about one of America's largest workforces.

They don't have offices and most don't get paychecks. There's no HR department, and calling in sick is generally frowned upon by Dad's cardiologist. They're family caregivers and we’re sharing the story of one of our own: a Gray Monster reader, caring for her divorced parents.

💛 In The Guardian, journalist Laura House, host of How’s Your Boomer?, looks at “caregiver creep,” the slow, sneaky way helping an aging parent can become a full-time job, and includes Gray Monster founder Kim Elliott’s own caregiving story.

🗝️ CarePorch Visits, a free service, launched this week, helping caregivers turn “we should come by sometime” into an actual visit schedule, without managing the coordination themselves.

💸  Yahoo Finance looks at how rising eldercare costs are forcing families to get creative, from moving parents closer to pooling sibling care and stretching retirement plans.

✊ Feminist icon Gloria Steinem died this week at 92. Long before the movement she led, she grew up caring for her ill mother in East Toledo, an early caregiving role that shaped the woman she became.

An AARP analysis estimates that 59 million Americans provided 49.5 billion hours of care to adults in 2024. Put a market value on that work and it comes to $1.01 trillion a year, roughly the equivalent of nearly 24 million full-time workers. 

And like you, Shanna Hawes is one of the 59 million. 

Shanna, 58, is a wife and mom who was working full time when caregiving entered the picture. Today, she’s the primary caregiver for two aging parents who divorced in 1977, live in different states.

It started with driving her Dad to appointments, then managing his finances, then two weeks of him living in her house after a cataract surgery went wrong. "That's when I started realizing, okay, I'm a caregiver," she said. Meanwhile, her Mom was overpaying some bills and forgetting others. Then her health collapsed: end-stage COPD, deep vein thrombosis, and a cycle of hospital, home, hospital.

If her parents had stayed married, there might at least have been one household to manage. Instead, Shanna got two. Two sets of doctors, two financial lives, two medication lists, and two insurance situations. And because her dad is in New York City and her mom is in New Jersey Shanna has to manage two different health care systems.

Shanna’s Dad, a veteran, has a social worker and a city case manager. "There was always a point person." Her mom had a Medicare Advantage plan and nobody in charge. "It was scattered all over the place."

While her parents divorce is decades old, family dynamics have stood the test of time. Mom still resents Dad. Dad asks about Mom. Shanna shares almost nothing in either direction. And as the eldest daughter, everybody knows she'll handle it and she does. 

Shanna learned, Medicare does not cover long-term nursing home care. For most families, paying for it runs through Medicaid, and the application process is a second full-time job. Unsure where to begin, Shanna found help on a poorly designed, but research rich website. A late-night search turned up a state resource site she describes as "hideous" but "jam-packed with resources." That's where she found a Medicaid specialist. She paid $7,500 for it. An attorney quoted $12,000. Friends asked why she didn't do it herself. "My mom was in crisis. I didn't have the luxury to take on a DIY at that time. Her life was in the balance."

The required spend-down paid for the specialist. Shanna’s mom had a condo and two cars. Medicaid allows one. Shanna's son suggested CarMax, which paid $7,000 for a 12-year-old car with 27,000 miles on it. That covered all but $500 of the fee.

Because Shanna had been paying her mom's bills and watching her accounts for years, nearly everything on the specialist's checklist was already in her hands. The exception: Medicaid needs proof there's no spouse whose income and assets count. Shanna quickly learned, nothing says middle age quite like hunting down a nearly 50-year-old divorce decree so her mom can qualify for long-term care.

The approval took months. In the meantime her mom needed a bed, and the better facilities don't take patients whose Medicaid is still pending. The one that did was, in Shanna's word, horrible. She walked in one evening at 6 o'clock to find her mother so overmedicated she was incoherent. Shanna filmed it, filed a complaint and called the state. "I kept harassing," she said. The state approved a transfer. When Medicaid came through, it was backdated to the application date, and her mom moved to where she is now. She’s doing much better and the hospital runs have stopped.

Shanna’s advice: Find out what your parent already qualifies for, whether through the county, city or veteran status, and use it. Then brace for paperwork. Get organized before a crisis, keep digital records of everything, and hold onto hard copies of the documents that matter most: wills, powers of attorney and, yes, the divorce decree.

Where to get help

A few places to start, including the ones Shanna used:

So on a holiday created to recognize American labor, we’re counting all of it. Including the work you didn’t interview for, nobody trained you to do, and Mom still expects you to finish before taking her to church and Dad asks you to complete before you run his errands.

You can’t fail this one. Answers and another quiz drop next week.

You said it. This week’s submissions.

"The internet went out for 30 minutes last night, Mom nearly lost her mind."

"My 79 year old mom forwarded me an email with advice about setting boundaries. Sigh."

"Told my dad I couldn't come this weekend and he said 'fine' in the voice that means it's not fine. Still went anyway."

"Found out my brother's been paying for Mom's groceries for months and never said anything. Felt like a bad daughter for not knowing."

"My mom asked if she could still be 'the mom' even though I'm the one managing her pills now. Didn't know what to say."

"Sat in the car for ten minutes after dropping him off just so he wouldn't see me cry."