Looking After Yourself While You Care for a Parent

About one in ten adults in the United States now cares for a parent aged 65 or older, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in February 2026. Among adults who still have a parent that age, the share is closer to one in four.

Picture one of them. Late afternoon, a car parked outside a parent’s house, engine off. On the passenger seat: a bag of groceries, a folder of bills, a phone lit with a reminder for Thursday’s appointment. Rain gathers on the windscreen. The driver’s hands stay on the wheel for two minutes before they go in.

Those two minutes aren’t avoidance. They’re the hinge between two lives: the job, the children and the commute on one side; on the other, a kitchen with an unpaid electricity bill on the counter. This post is for the person in that seat.

What follows are five things people often believe about caring for a parent, each held up against what the research shows. Every figure comes from U.S. surveys, so read them as American numbers, not global ones.

Myth: If I’m doing it out of love, it shouldn’t cost me anything

Pew asked adults who regularly help a parent how caring has affected different parts of their lives. On emotional well-being, more said the effect was negative than positive: 39% against 28%. The same tilt showed up everywhere else they asked about: physical health (33% negative vs 19% positive), social life (36% vs 15%), finances (32% vs 18%) and work (30% vs 17%).

In every category, the remaining carers said the effect had been neither positive nor negative, so this isn’t a picture of a majority in crisis. These are also self-reported impressions, not diagnoses. Still, a real share of people who care out of love say they’re paying for it somewhere: in sleep, in friendships, in their bank balance.

Verdict: Love and cost can ride in the same car. Feeling the cost doesn’t mean the love is falling short.

Myth: Caring for my parent is wrecking our relationship

Tired evenings and clipped phone calls can make it feel that way. Pew’s data points the other way. Asked how caregiving has affected their relationship with their parent, 56% of carers said positively, 16% said negatively and 28% said neither.

That doesn’t cancel the hard days, or the voice on the phone asking the same question for the third time. It suggests that, for many people, the closeness and the strain arrive in the same visit.

Verdict: For most carers in this survey, the relationship held. For many, it grew.

Myth: Hardly anyone else is going through this

Caring can feel solitary. It happens after hours, in someone else’s house, about things you’d rather not bring up at work. The numbers say otherwise.

Pew’s one-in-ten figure refers specifically to caring for a parent aged 65 or older. A separate and broader count, from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving’s Caregiving in the U.S. 2025 report, estimates that around 63 million Americans, roughly one in four adults, are family caregivers of any kind. That is about 20 million more than in 2015.

The two studies define caring differently, so their figures shouldn’t be added together or swapped for one another. Both describe something common, and growing.

Verdict: If you’re parked outside a parent’s house tonight, plenty of other cars are parked outside other houses too.

Myth: It hits every carer the same way

Pew’s data shows clear gaps. Among regular helpers, women were more likely than men to report a negative effect on their emotional well-being (47% vs 30%) and on their physical health (38% vs 26%).

Income shapes who ends up caring in the first place. Among adults with an ageing parent or spouse, 39% of lower-income adults were caregivers, compared with 16% of upper-income adults. That figure measures who cares, not how hard it is for them. But it shows the work falls more heavily on people with less room in the budget to pay for help.

Verdict: The load is real for everyone, but it doesn’t land evenly. If yours feels heavier than a friend’s, you may simply be right.

Myth: It’s only “real” caring if it’s hands-on personal care

Many people picture caregiving as bathing, dressing or helping someone eat. Pew found that this is the least common form of regular help: 16% of carers provide personal care regularly. Far more common are errands, housework and repairs (52%), managing health-care matters such as appointments and prescriptions (42%), and handling finances (39%).

The groceries, the folder of bills, Thursday’s appointment on the passenger seat: all of it counts.

Verdict: If you handle the logistics, you’re a carer. You’re allowed to call yourself one.

Keeping a little for yourself

None of this resolves in a single decision, and much of it isn’t yours to fix alone. A few small habits can still hold something back for you.

Keep the two minutes. Treat the pause in the car as yours, not as a delay. Let the rain on the roof be the only thing asking for your attention, or listen to your own breathing slow down.

Name what you do. If the errands and paperwork are care, say so, to a partner, a sibling or a manager. Saying it plainly can change what others expect of you.

Tell one person the truth. How it’s actually going, not the version you give everyone else.

Find the people whose job this is. Carers’ groups and national carers’ organisations exist to connect people in your position with information, support and others who understand. If you live outside the U.S., Carers UK is one example of a national organisation that can serve as a first point of contact. For anything about your parent’s health or care, their GP or care team is the right place to ask.

Then the hands leave the wheel, the bags leave the seat, and the front door opens.

Sources

• Parker, K. (2026, February 26). Family Caregiving in an Aging America. Pew Research Center. Survey of 8,750 U.S. adults, 2–8 September 2025, including 1,193 caregivers of a parent, spouse or partner aged 65+.
• AARP & National Alliance for Caregiving. (2025, July 24). Caregiving in the U.S. 2025 press release.