This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Susan Freeman, 72, who lives in Utica, New York. Freeman put her career on hold to care for her mother, who passed away in 2019, and now works at her sister’s store. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I find myself at 72 working four days a week. I’ve lived in this house for 72 years and haven’t gone anywhere.
To get back into the workforce and get another job at this stage of the game isn’t going to happen. Everything now is AI, and it’s very technical. You have to be on the ball and create a whole different niche in life.
Unless I can think of something else to do to create more wealth at this age, then I’m sunk.
I left my career to take care of my mom
In 1971, I worked on loan collections at a bank, and then as a secretary. I got married and started at a major insurance company, doing medical claims for airlines. My mother and sister opened up a uniform store — Josie’s Uniforms and Shoes, after my mom’s name. I worked there for a while before returning to MetLife.
Then, my father died in 1999. My mother wasn’t very functional, so I had to leave that MetLife job and take care of her. I was up for a promotion — I would have been a supervisor — and had to miss out on my pension.
I stayed home until 2001, when my husband and I opened up a pizzeria. I bought it from the previous owners because I thought it was a good deal.
In 2004, my mother had a stroke, and we had to sell the pizzeria. I stayed home, while my husband worked. We were living off his pay. It was too much pressure, though, and my husband and I separated from 2006 until 2009, when he moved back in. During that time, he lived with my daughter.
I also got a few hundred dollars a month in Social Security Disability Insurance starting in 2006. Medicare paid for my New York State insurance until 2009.
I wasn’t able to work while being a caregiver
I spent 24 hours a day with my mother, who was in a wheelchair. I’d be upstairs sleeping, and she would call me on the phone to come down to straighten her out in bed. I couldn’t leave at night for a little while to go out with friends.
Every morning, I’d get up, come downstairs, wash all her clothes, and wash her. My mother wanted to go out every single day. At the time, I didn’t have a car, so my son gave me his car.
She wanted to go each day to Walmart or the casino, spend $20, and come back. If the snow was a mile high, I had to take her from the kitchen through the back bedroom all the way to the car, lift up her wheelchair, and put it in the trunk.
For three hours every morning, I had somebody here watching my mom. Every day, I’d walk a mile and a half to go to the gym, and then come back. I remember being back five minutes late from my walk one day, and the girl who was here had left. My mother had thrown all of the papers all over the floor.
You feel a lot of guilt. She was my mother, and I just couldn’t leave her. I didn’t trust people taking care of her. I never had babysitters for my children.
Later on, my brother hired somebody to come in for an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half at night, just to give me a little break.
When my husband left, I was living off $600 a month
New York had a program that allowed caregivers to get paid, but I was deemed ineligible for payment and was out of luck. I also didn’t qualify for food stamps or Section Eight.
Instead of always putting my family first, I should’ve thought about myself more. A lot of the responsibility fell on me. I had given up a lot.
Still, I got to see my mother every day, and she was clean, and her hair was all combed. Everybody would say how pretty she looked. I felt the obligation to help.
In 2015, my mother went into a nursing home at 94 because it was too dangerous for her to stay home. I couldn’t lift her, and she wouldn’t know her limits. She stayed in nursing homes until she passed in 2019.
I went back to work for my sister at the uniform store she started with our mom
It’s just the two of us — me and my sister, who is now 79 — at the store, selling garments. My mother’s name is still on the store.
My sister lets me pretty much do what I want. If it gets a little rough during the course of the day, I can take breaks.
My husband is 75 now, and he drives 30 miles each way to the casino to work. We have to pay our bills. I was brought up with the philosophy that you make your own way in this world, and I don’t want to go to the government for anything.
It’s still a struggle because you try to play catch-up, and it just doesn’t work. I need back surgery, but I’ve got to keep working.
I don’t have much savings to fall back on, but I just need to pay bills and have a little extra money for things we want to do. I keep my credit score above 800. I have a small mortgage on the house, and we remodeled the downstairs. Between the county taxes, city taxes, house insurance, National Grid, and Spectrum, we have just enough left over for some shopping or for the kids.
I do have grandchildren, and I have children whom I help out monetarily. It’s put a dent in our ability to put money away, but I’ll never be comfortable with having my children struggle.
My grandchildren really are wonderful; they always come over for dinner, and my granddaughter picks me up to take me to work once a week.
It’s sad in this day and age that people are multi-millionaires, and there’s no help for the elderly who have sacrificed for us. There needs to be more avenues for elderly people to work and bring in enough to care for their loved ones.
