Why Do I Hate The Designation Of The Term ‘Carer’ For Family Caregivers?
Because it transforms a relationship into a transaction!
Let’s be clear I have no problems with caregivers who look after their relatives. Caring for family members, especially the fragile elderly, can be difficult and exhausting task. And unfortunately, while our society recognises the energy-draining demand of childcare it tends to overlook the taxing demands of looking after infirm elderly relatives.
The reason why I hate the term carer is because it implicitly transforms the unique relationship between family members into a generic term that divests caring from its special normative content. The prevailing cultural script appears to be devoted to the project of depriving intimate relationships of their unique normative status. Why because in its devotion to the dogma of inclusion it assumes that relationships that possess a unique normative status are by definition exclusive. And according to the dogma of inclusion any form of exclusion constitutes a cultural crime.
My visceral reaction against the term ‘carer’ is the product of an unforgettable experience that haunts me to this day. This occurredwhen my fatally ill mother lay in a hospital 17 years ago. It was at this moment that I realised that in the eyes of the hospital’s administration, my perception of my relationship to my mother was now regarded as outdated.
As soon as I heard that my mother had a stroke, I went to see her at our local hospital. Upon arrival, I introduced myself to the receptionist with the words, ‘I’m Frank Furedi, I’m Clara’s son.’ The woman looked up at me and said, ‘You mean you’re her “carer”’. ‘No, her son’, I responded. But she was insistent: ‘No, you are her carer.’ Later one hospital administrator explained to me that they used the word carer because it included all – apparently not every patient has a close relative to look after them. It is apparently a very inclusive word.
The word carer maybe inclusive but if a special connection between mother and son is transformed into a bureaucratic typology something very important has been lost. The relationship between patients and their family, friends and paid help all involve care but convey fundamentally different meaning to the people concerned. The reason why I rushed to the hospital to see my mother was not because I was her carer but because I was her son. The sentiments and concerns that a son possesses regarding the well-being of his mother can never be captured by the term carer. Filial love and the natural bond that underpins it is antithetical to the administratively convenient term, the carer.
At the time, when I was told by the receptionist that I stood before her as a carer I did not quite understand my anger. It was only after reflecting on the meaning of what they call ‘inclusive language’ that I realised it was designed displace the natural bonds of intimacy between people by a generic normative-free vocabulary that displaced the unique character of family ties.
Of course, people have every right to refer to themselves as carers, but so should everyone have the right to use an intimate kinship-based terminology to refer to themselves. The term partner too is inclusive, but it does not possess the same normative content as husband and wife. The use of a neutral and administratively informed language has the merit of not discriminating between different people and relationships. But the price we pay is that the particularity conveyed by the terminology that evolved over the centuries becomes lost.
It is worth noting that the contemporary designation ‘carer’ for an unpaid family caregiver emerged and was institutionalised in Britain around 1981-1982. The advocacy group Association of Carers was founded in 198. It aimed to support carers ‘to have a break from their caring roles’[i]. No doubt this group provides a valuable service. However, language matters. And since the 1980s there has been a systematic attempt to deprive traditional language of its moral content. That’s not the fault of caregivers but of the educational and cultural institutions that police our language.
Some of the most taken-for-granted, everyday expressions relating to our family and community lives are now deemed unacceptable by the seemingly never-ending publication of new ‘inclusive language guides’. Words like ‘mum’ and ‘dad’, ‘homeless’, ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’, ‘ex-pat’, and terms like ‘deprived neighbourhoods’, ‘second generation’, ‘lifestyle choices’, and ‘economic migrant’ are now deemed unacceptable by the Inclusive Language Guide published by the Local Government Association.[ii] As a ‘positive’ alternative to objectionable terms like ‘mum’ and ‘dad’, the LGA suggests using the infelicitous ‘birthing parent’.
There is wider tendency towards the re-engineering of the traditional vocabulary in order distance society from its past and alter the way people think. This has important implication for how society perceives itself since as the philosopher John Locke explained ‘speech is the great bond that hold society together. In his ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ (1689), Locke explained that it is through language that ‘knowledge is conveyed from man to man and down the generations’[iii]. The words we use have evolved through centuries – if not thousands of years – of practice and through their usage have helped people gain meaning about their place in the world. They have bound different generations together in a common language community. Locke was aware that the manipulation of language could constitute a serious problem. He insisted that language should not be regarded as a form of private property. He wrote that ‘for words, especially of languages already framed, being no man’s private possession, but the common measure of commerce and communication, ‘tis not for any one, at pleasure, to change’ [iv]. From his perspective language use is underpinned by a semantic and moral compact between members of civil society[v].
The words we use signals what society deems to be important. Language reflects the values and beliefs of a culture which is why the Culture Wars are so intertwined with conflicts over words.
[i] https://associationofcarers.org.uk/our-team/
[ii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/06/councils-ordered-ditch-mum-dad-homeless-new-language-guide/
[iii] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
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[iv] https://jacklynch.net/Texts/locke-language.html
[v] See Dawson, H., 2005. Locke on language in (civil) society. History of Political Thought, 26(3), pp.398-425 for a fascinating discussion on semantic and moral compact in Locke’s philosophy.