For junior Ruth Ahn, coming home from school looks different from many of her peers. Instead of having downtime from long days at school, she immediately begins her home responsibilities, caring for her six-year-old sister.
“For my case, it is hard for me sometimes to find time to do stuff with my sister and have time for all the studying and homework and other things that I want to do.” Ahn says.
Ahn’s reality is the same for many across the country. According to a Stanford University study, more than 5.4 million children and adolescents take care of siblings, parents and grandparents on an ongoing basis. This is especially true as circumstance often dictates teen caregivers’ day-to-day lives. For Ahn, having busy parents means she is entrusted with the responsibility of caring for her younger sister.
“I do have pretty busy parents, that means you’re gonna have to watch that sibling a lot longer than maybe people with an older adult or caregiver that’s able to also watch the siblings,” Ahn said.
Ahn said caring for her sister involves watching her and making sure she stays safe while their parents are away.
“(For me), caring for siblings is basically just helping them get through their daily lives by either making them snacks, playing with them, watching over them while they do their work, or helping with their homework. It’s just making them feel happy and safe when your parents may not be able to watch them or are busy.”
She said she does this with her sister by watching her and helping her learn.
“I would say a lot of (my daily responsibilities as a teen caregiver) is keeping my sister entertained and playing with her when my parents are busy or at work or watching over her, if she’s occupied with reading something, making sure I’m there and present to make sure she’s not doing anything dangerous or crazy. And sometimes (I’m) teaching her stuff like basic math or new words,” she said.
Junior Wesley Quinn said he takes care of his younger siblings ages six and ten. He said he has to wake up early to take care of his siblings and make sure they get on the bus when both of his parents are working in the mornings.
“In my case, I have to wake up a lot earlier, about an hour (or) sometimes multiple hours earlier to get them on the bus,” he said.
School counselor Casey Danubio said she sees student caretakers having to spend a lot of time every day helping out siblings, parents or grandparents. She said it could limit their extracurricular activities outside of school because of the time they have to spend helping out family members.
“I don’t really see those kids participating in a lot of after or before school actvities, (because) they either need to be driving somebody somewhere, cooking somebody dinner or picking somebody up,” she said.
Sophomore Emma Steiner said she helps out a lot at home by taking care of her three younger siblings.
“I usually have to take care of them if my parents are doing something or if there’s just general chaos and a bit of extra help is needed. In general, I would say it’s not a bad experience because my siblings are usually pretty chill, and I think they listen to me better than they listen to my parents. So I just make sure they don’t get into any fights, and as they’ve gotten older, it’s been less stressful because they can handle themselves. Definitely when they were little, I would be like, ‘Get your own food,’ but they could not get their own food, (so I had to help them).”
Challenges of being a teen caregiver
Being a teen caregiver can come with a lot of responsibilities as well as challenges. Ahn said the biggest challenge for her is managing her time between school and home.
“I think it makes my life, I don’t want to say harder, but it does in a way make it harder, because you just have a lot less time to do everything you want to do because if you have busy parents, and in my case, I do have pretty busy parents,” she said. “I think this affects my extracurriculars and things like getting a job and stuff like that because there’s a lot of times where there may be a mandatory meeting that I need to go to or maybe in my case there’s a debate meeting that I want to go to, but on that day my parents are super booked and they need someone to watch my sister and the only option would really be me because my brothers are in college.”
Quinn said he also experienced some limitations on his extracurriculars because of his at-home responsibilities.
“It means I haven’t been able to get a job, and there have been times where I’ve had to skip some of my personal activities to do this, such as I’ve had to miss Boy Scout meetings to watch my siblings before, which is very inconvenient,” he said.
Steiner said she has had to sacrifice some of her personal preferences to take care of her siblings.
“When my parents are away, I might need to not put in my AirPods because I need to make sure I hear if there’s chaos happening. So I need to put aside my own time sometimes just to make sure the children are okay,” she said.
Danubio said she has seen teen caregivers struggle with mental health as well as with time management.
“I think what is hard is that they see that other kids might not have to have these challenges or struggles or responsibilities,” she said. “So if you’re comparing yourself to the typical teen around you, you might feel resentful or exhausted or angry that you are having to do more, and not really being able to like take care of yourself at a time in your life when the hope is that you’re really focusing on who are you going to become and how you are going to get your education.”
She said there can be a lot of challenges with teen caregivers feeling like other people can’t relate to what they’re going through.
“But then on the other side of that, you know, there are families who really just culturally might rely on each other in a different way, and they find strength and hope in that, so it’s not always all bad,” she said.
Finding a balance
Between afterschool clubs, sports, or working a part-time job, finding balance is essential for teen caregivers to maximize their learning capabilities while making sure they uphold their caregiving responsibilities.
Quinn said he uses this role to his advantage.
“Taking care of my siblings for me is a rather set activity from one time to another, so it is easier to build other activities around it when it’s a set activity, such like my school is from one time to another, so other things like homework can be placed around school and taking care of my siblings because those two are constant and stuff like homework can fill in,” he said.
Ahn said she has found a way to balance home and school life.
“I think I’ve balanced childcare and school just by prioritizing as much time as I possibly can,” she said. “Like when (my sister is) watching TV or she’s being watched by my parents, I try to get a lot of the stuff that I need to get done during those times because that’s extra time that just can’t be wasted.”
Amidst the growing competitive nature of college applications, Danubio said they can show off their maturity in a way to use it to their advantage.
“There are areas in the application where you can say, ‘Hey, tell us what may have impacted you during your high school experience, why is there only one activity or why were your grades maybe not the way you wanted it to be’ and you can explain all of that. That’s its own advantage about you and it takes a lot of skills to be able to manage all of that for anybody, let alone a young person.”
“Honestly it wasn’t as bad as it may seem,” Ahn said. “It gets really stressful because we’re just around each other a lot, so we do argue because we’re siblings, but we also do have good moments. I think it really is rewarding because in the end you’re caring for your sibling, you’re helping them grow up and you can give some credit to yourself because you have raised that child in a way. It’s kind of like watching your own child grow up, so I would definitely say it is rewarding.”