Robert Turner with his father, Robert Turner, Sr.
NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
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NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
Robert Turner with his father, Robert Turner, Sr.
NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
Robert Turner didn’t expect the last 24 hours to pass like this.
His 85-year-old father was admitted to the hospital overnight. Turner had just picked him up and helped him into his car so he could take him home to Piscataway, New Jersey.
Returning to the driveway of the house where he grew up, Turner helped his father out of the car and, with the help of a home health aide, helped him up the stairs and positioned him on a chair in the living room .
“It’s nice to be back from the hospital, right?” he asked his father as the two sat eating ice cream. His father agreed.
Turner is part of a growing group: black male caregivers. Nearly 40 percent of caregivers for older adults are men, and one-third of them are black. But black people face some problems that others don’t. One is their health: African-American men have the worst health of any group in the United States. As a group, they also deal with negative perceptions of themselves.
“Given the image and treatment of black people in America, many men feel that life is stressful on so many different levels,” Turner said.
A few years ago, Turner decided to research Black male caregivers, bringing his personal and professional lives together. His day job is as an associate professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He specializes in sociology and neurology and has been conducting research on the brain health of black people caring for patients with dementia.
“The hero of my life”
Turner’s father, also named Robert, has Alzheimer’s disease. He was taciturn and withdrawn in the hospital, but once he returned to a familiar environment, he was energetic, smiling and chatting. The mango ice cream his son bought was a little tasteless considering the new cast on his arm, but he didn’t let that stop him.
Robert Turner Sr. holds up a photo of himself as a young Marine.
NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
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NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
Robert Turner Sr. holds up a photo of himself as a young Marine.
NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
Robert Turner Sr. joined the Marines at 19, became an electrician, had four children and served as a deacon in church in his later years. Turner has cared for his father since his mother died two years ago. He was his father’s eldest son and the two had always been close.
“It was an amazing experience for me,” Turner said. “It gave me this incredible time to reflect on our relationship and… a lot of the traits that I have are because of what I learned from him and looking at my dad as a hero in my life. .
Turner explained that most research on caregiver stress has been conducted on women and said he was keen to redress the balance.
He said this is not only because African-American men have worse health outcomes than other Americans, but also because they face social stereotypes. “They feel that as caregivers they have a greater financial burden than any other group.”
Turner will publish the results of his research later this year.
“We are trying to understand care-related stress in black men, including physical stress and neurocognitive function,” he said. He had a control group consisting of black men who did not provide care and a caregiver. He said even non-caregivers were excited to sign up for the study because, as one told him, “This is the first time I’ve been asked to participate in a study of black men.”
try their best
Family relationships are one of the more difficult aspects of nursing. Diane Mariani oversees the caregiver care program at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
“Sometimes there’s a big family, but no one else asking, ‘What can I do?’ or offering support,” she said. “There are a lot of excuses.”
The lack of help can add to feelings of isolation and overload in a role that many men choose not to discuss openly. But it’s not all bad. Mariani found that African-American caregivers in her program experienced lower emotional stress and found their caregiving roles more meaningful than white caregivers.
She said studies found caregivers who participated in the program performed better and had less anxiety and depression, as did the older adults they cared for. Mariani said they had “fewer hospitalizations and shorter hospital stays,” which shows how connected caregivers and those being cared for are.
Don Williams commutes each month from his home in Maryland to Augusta, Georgia, to care for his mother. She just turned 97.
“My faith has helped me through a lot of different things in my life,” he said. “I know it helps sustain me and help me make the decisions I need because I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own.”
Williams is a widower who found out in 2020, just as the pandemic began, that he had metastatic prostate cancer. His caregiving journey coincided with recent cancer treatment. He said it was all a stress. But his mother cared for him, and he said caring for her was a loving responsibility.
“If my mother had left this world before me, I would know that I would have contributed to her quality of life in any way I could,” he said.
Robert Turner felt the same way. His father had good days and bad days. But even as the day began in the hospital, he was still happy.
Father and son are now the caregiver and the cared for. Robert Turner, Sr. is happy, even though his day starts with being discharged from the hospital.
NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
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NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
Father and son are now the caregiver and the cared for. Robert Turner, Sr. is happy, even though his day starts with being discharged from the hospital.
NPR’s Ashley Milne-Tate
His father had been an avid whistler, but Turner said as his condition worsened, he began singing. This afternoon he began singing the first verse of “When the Saints Go Marching In” while Turner sat on the arm of his father’s chair and listened.
“He showed me every step of the way how to be a man,” Turner said. “Even now in his state, he is showing me what dignity and grace are and what honor and respect are [are]and how to age gracefully.
Turner said he has looked up to his father his entire life and would be there whenever his father needed him.
