Someone posted in a caregiver support group that their loved one (LO) fell and has to have physical rehab. The person's sister, who has not given her a break in 3 years, was told she is going to have to. The sister will do it, but only if she is paid. The poster was asking how much she should pay her sister.
My quickly written but longwinded reply to that question is this:
Would you go down to a hardware supply store or day-work place to find someone who does manual labor to be a caregiver? Would you consider hiring a person standing on the street with a sign that reads, "Need work! Will do anything except sex work." to come to your home and be a caregiver. You wouldn't be a very smart (or good) person if you did that.
If you are going to pay someone, pay a professional, or a trained and/or experienced caregiver. If all you need is someone to elder-sit, then hire someone who is an experienced elder-sitter.
Is your sister a professional caregiver? Is she a trained family caregiver? Does she have experience from being a caregiver? Has she been one in the last 3 years? If not, then why would you pay her rather than pay a professional? You'd basically be hiring an unskilled and untrained person to come do a job that requires specific skills and a specific mindset. That is no different than hiring someone off the street.
YOU are a trained and skilled family caregiver. I know that because your LO is still alive and still living at home. Your sister is not, by virtue of blood, a skilled family caregiver. I think we family caregivers are blind to the fact that we have become skilled and trained and knowledgeable in our roles. We are not so easily replaced. Someone cannot just walk into our roles "off the street" and do what we do and do it successfully and appropriately.
Family Caregivers do not get paid vacations. If you are being paid to be a family caregiver, then use that pay (salary) to pay someone who is appropriate to replace you for a while. Use the money to hire someone who will do the job property. If you are being paid, you cannot pay someone you hired off the street less money than you are getting to do the job you are being paid to do. That would be fraud.
What do you need your sister to do? Simply give you a little help, a few hours break, take your LO to rehab and back, and watch her for a few hours? There is a big difference between a sitter, a companion, and a caregiver. Then you have to take into consideration overnight caregivers.
Hiring a non-medical aide from Senior Helpers (for example) will cost around $45 an hour. To hire someone privately, that would be something like $15-$17 an hour (depends on your location). That is for someone who is credentialed and are licensed, not some unskilled person hired "off the street".
Your sister wants to be paid. Is this because she knows you are being paid as a caregiver? Or does she not care one way or the other. She just wants to be paid for her time. That is fine, and her right. But that is not someone who is going to be able to replace you and do all that you do. She won't do it properly, diligently, professionally.
Helping out, taking over a few of your duties for a while, that is vastly different than replacing you as the caregiver.
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