Caregiving: Motherhood In Disguise

Motherhood takes many forms, and caregiving might be the most overlooked version. This Mother's Day episode challenges us to reconsider who deserves celebration and recognition.

The numbers tell a striking story: Americans spent $33 billion on Mother's Day last year, showering traditional mothers with gifts and attention. Meanwhile, family caregivers perform somewhat similar work—often with many challenges—yet receive little acknowledgment. As caregivers, we embody the very definition of mothering: "bringing up with care and affection." We provide selfless support and unconditional love and prioritize our loved ones' needs above our own. Sound familiar? That's motherhood in its purest form.

Unlike traditional parents who choose their role and prepare for it, caregivers are typically thrust into responsibility without warning. We didn't plan for our parents to develop Alzheimer's or dementia. We didn't anticipate becoming responsible for another adult's survival. Yet here we stand,  without the recognition. For those in the "sandwich generation" simultaneously raising children while caring for aging parents, the burden is doubly heavy—yet society rarely acknowledges this extraordinary dual mothering role.

This Mother's Day, I'm advocating that caregivers claim their rightful place in the celebration. Whether you're caring for a parent, spouse, sibling, or friend, the selfless nature of your work deserves recognition. Tell your circle that, as someone performing motherly duties, you're open to receiving the gifts, dinners, and celebrations typically reserved for traditional mothers. And consider how this challenging journey might be transforming you, developing greater patience, compassion, and resilience that benefits not just your loved one, but ripples outward to enhance all your relationships.

Join our Patreon community at patreon.com/JSmilesStudios to connect with fellow caregivers and access behind-the-scenes content. 

Host: J Smiles 

Producer: Mia Hall

Editor: Annelise Udoye 

Chapters

• 0:00 Happy Mother's Day to Caregivers
• 3:28 Redefining Motherhood for Caregivers
• 8:24 The Unrecognized Work of Caregiving
• 13:26 Celebrating Yourself as a Caregiver
• 18:02 Zetty's Legacy of Motherhood
• 23:33 Growth Through Caregiving and Snuggle Ups

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Happy Mother's Day, parenting Up community, and I mean it from the depths of my soul, from your girl, Jay Smiles. Happy Mother's Day I want you to lean into. Whatever love means to you, whatever being supported means to you, whatever having someone unconditionally have your back. Now, maybe it was not your mother, maybe the woman who actually birthed you is not the one who gives you those fuzzies. Don't let that distract you from the higher meaning of what Mother's Day was created to do. So what woman has given you that wink, that love, that encouragement in spirituality, in professionalism, in socializing, in relationships with somebody romantic? Who's that woman? Or maybe it's even a cluster of women. If you are so fortunate and so lucky as to have like a uh, a tribunal of women who just they got you Now, they might put their elbow in your neck that was me smacking my elbow If you don't show up in a way that they think you should. But that's cool, that's cool. So, happy Mother's Day to you and to the village of women who have made you who you are.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Parenting up caregiving adventures with comedian Jay Smiles is the intense journey of unexpectedly being fully responsible for my mama. For over a decade I've been chipping away at the unknown, advocating for her and pushing Alzheimer's awareness on anyone and anything with a heartbeat. Spoiler alert this shit is heavy. That's why I started doing comedy, so be ready for the jokes. Caregiver newbies, ogs and village members just willing to prop up a caregiver you are in the right place. Hi, this is Betty. I hope you enjoy my daughter's podcast. You got okay.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Today's supporter shout out comes from YouTube, kathy B6358. I quote I know that support was unbelievable. We got likes and thumbs up and all kinds of stuff, thank you. Thank you, captain B6358. If you want to receive a supporter shout out, then you know what to do. Go to Apple Podcasts or YouTube or Instagram. We are parenting up on all those platforms. Okay, tell us what you like, give us that review, make your comment. That feedback really does make a difference, not only in the algorithm, but what content we bring you next.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Today's episode caregiving motherhood in disguise. $33 billion that's what we spent in the United States on Mother's Day last year. The year before, that was actually two billion more dollars. Ok, so I don't know how y'all treat your mama the other days, but woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. She get them gifts, she gets that dinner. And why do we do that? She gets them gifts, she gets that dinner, and why do we do that? Why do we shower those women on that day with so much love, affection and attention?

Speaker 1: 4:26

I think about it all the time because it depends on really how you define a mother, as to who about to get part of that gift and that chicken meal on Mother's Day. In a Troy sense, parenting up family. I'm not a mother, if you, if you like, how we define this thing, who are you asking? You asking a neighbor, or are you asking the dictionary? Well, the dictionary, first of all, a mother is the word mother. Well, we are talking about the mother, the bad word mother, but mother can be a verb or a noun. I am a mom, but mothers do All right about that, because I think there's some other people out there like me who might not recognize that, though a human did not come out of your private parts, you are indeed a mother. So Oxford Dictionary says that a mother is defined as bringing up with care and affection.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Okay, parenting up community. You bringing up your parent, your spouse, your sibling. You bringing them up, you keeping them alive If they have dementia, alzheimer's, parkinson's, any of that stuff, if you stop your care right now, they're going to die very soon. Well, okay, I, I okay. Hold on. I don't want to be too bold on y'all. Let's just say they're living longer because of you.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So are you kind of a mother? You know what I mean Like and this is even more, I think, telling for us in the caregiving community when you ask a woman who has been defined in current society as a mother, hey, tell us what you think it means to be a mom. What's the difference between you and other people? And I quote being a mother is selfless. You're giving unconditional love and you're putting the needs of your kid above yourself. Now I'm going to just sit back in this chair that I'm in and I'm going to let everybody in the sound and the vision the sound of my voice and the vision of my face, depending on how you are absorbing this podcast episode Think about that. How the hell is that not the parenting up community? That's all we do. We are selfless. It's unconditional love, and we are so putting our LOs above ourself, our loved ones, anybody who's new to the community?

Speaker 1: 7:08

We are FCGs, family caregivers. We don't get paid, we pay. We actually pay money to be a caregiver. It's so silly. It's so silly and it's we also pay with our emotions, with our bodies, the the relationships that we lose, because when you go 10 toes down this caregiving world, it's a haze. Maybe we should start a sorority and a fraternity, because it is a haze or it's military like, and then you got to get up at this time and be home at this time and don't be AWOL. You know what I mean. Leave without absence, without leave, meaning they didn't tell you you could be gone. I tell you what if Zeddy's caregivers text or call me and I don't respond, within they might give me 30 minutes. They start calling all my line sisters.

Speaker 1: 8:11

I'm a Delta. I am sitting right now in some in a shirt that's red. It has votes, votes stitched across it and where the O would be is our crest. And I'm so Delta-tified because that's a big thing that my mom and I share. My nails are white, except my ring finger is red, because I don't know if y'all know the reason why, supposedly you put your ring finger, your wedding ring, on the left hand and the finger second to the pinky is that's the one that the vein or something goes right up to your heart. Whatever. I'm not a doctor, I'm just saying that's what they threw out there. And so that one I have colored red with some little white sparkles on it for all my deltarin, and I got the same thing on my toes. My toes are white, with the big toe being red.

Speaker 1: 9:06

And what does all this mean, jay? Why are you telling us all of this? You can define mother however you want to. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm trying to tell you to celebrate yourself in being a caregiver. So if your mother is the person you're caring for and maybe you all can't exchange gifts or pleasantries, you can't hug and kiss her and know that she recognizes what you're doing you can celebrate yourself on Mother's Day and you know what else you could ask people to celebrate you. You can. You know what.

Speaker 1: 9:42

Everybody's walking around telling people how they identify. You can say, as a family caregiver on Mother's Day, I identify as being very motherly to this person I'm caring for and I am open for all gifts, parties, dinners and anything y'all want to give me. We have to advocate for ourselves. A whole lot of people don't know what we need. They don't know if we consider ourselves to be parents. That's a tricky issue. I don't consider myself a parent. I consider myself my mama's caregiver, but in the broadest definition of being a mother, I want to go ahead and say I am killing it, I am mothering the hell out of my mama. I don't even know what that means. We're going to have to come up with some new words. I mean, if Beyonce can make Buddha delicious a word, we ought to be able to make a new word for when you mama, your mama, what are you? You the mama, mama, I'm the double mama. I'm the mama over the mama, mama under the mama Parenting up community.

Speaker 1: 10:47

What we do is hard. We don't have a moment in time where we get celebrated like traditional parents do, but we're doing as much, much or maybe even more. And before anybody jumps on me, what do you mean by more, jay? What I mean by more is we didn't plan to be here. Biological parents do plan to have a kid. Even if they didn't plan to get pregnant, they did say we're going to go ahead and keep this baby and we're going to raise this child. That was a decision that they knew in advance and most people actually like yeah, I want to be a parent Because you want to have a little kid, a little mini-me and whatever. Leave my DNA on the world.

Speaker 1: 11:45

I have yet to hear any family caregiver say, oh, I'm so happy that my mama or my daddy is falling apart and they need me. I just haven't. I've yet to hear it, not one time, even for caregivers who may enjoy the work. How did you in advance think about your mom or your dad crashing out so early in life that now you got to take care of them or be in charge of their affairs? I ain't mad at nobody, no, no.

Speaker 1: 12:28

So I you know what I'm advocating for us taking a chunk out of Mother's Day for ourself. And heaven, shmevens, if you are part of that sandwich community where you actually have a child, somebody who is a minor or younger than you, and you got your parent, you should take the Saturday off before Mother's Day and the Monday after the Sunday you need. I am calling that's what I'm James Miles is calling. I'm calling a three day weekend if you in the sandwich generation, because one day is because of your kids, the other day is because of this loved one, this parent that you care for, and then the third day is because that's the day that they giving to everybody else who ain't even doing as much as you. Right, that's ain't nobody got time for that. Hey, what's up? Parented Up family. Guess what? Have you ever wanted to connect with other caregivers? You wanna see more behind the scenes footage? Wanna know what me and Zeddy are doing? I know you do All things. Jsmiles are finally ready for you, even when I go live. Uh-huh, do it now with us on Patreon. Join us in the Patreon community. Catch everything we're doing. Visit patreoncom forward. Slash JSmilesStudios with an S.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Zetty defined herself as a mother more than anything else. She told me all the time that being a mom changed the trajectory of her life and that it mattered most to her what I thought about, what she was doing or what our relationship was. So I do lean into that and I use that a lot when the dark, dark, dark night comes and stuff isn't going so well. Dark night comes and stuff isn't going so well. In my instance, my mom really cared about me. First, she did all the things and whatever she didn't do she got somebody else to do, and you know what else. When it didn't work, she would tell me baby mama made a mistake, or I know you said you wanted this, but you can't have that because I don't have no money, or you can't have that because I gotta go out of town. She would explain it to me. So there was what Conversation and communication which, generically speaking, women, I better add. I'm just going to go ahead and call that out there. There's some study somewhere, statistically, so you go look it up if you don't believe me. But I'm just going to stand ten toes down on that.

Speaker 1: 15:32

And Zetty would make sure that, no matter what, we were together on Mother's Day. There were times when I was either in somewhere getting a degree in somebody's university or working and I couldn't be with her. I couldn't get home to Montgomery Alabama. Your girl would tell her mama and my daddy Well I'm, I will see y'all later. On Mother's Day I'm going to be with my child because she can't come home. All of that helps me when times are stressful and strenuous.

Speaker 1: 16:15

As her caregiver, I actually lean into the thought of what Mother's Day and what it being a mother is about. It's selfless, put the needs of others before your own. But we hear about that in so many other parts of life. People who are in the military say that's the only way it works is that you got to put the whole unit above yourself and then, whatever your commander say, oh, in these corporations OK, the ones that we like there's a board of directors and you know you got to do what's best for the shareholders and what's best for your employees, even if it's not what you want to do. All of this strings together like not what you want to do. All of this strings together Like the main points of what being a mother is are the same parameters that define the best teams in the world, find the best teams on the world, in the world. That's how bad ass being a mother is. That if you know how to do that, you can do anything else Academically, professionally, socially, blah. Go for it, because you are putting the greater good and the whole team or the whole project ahead of. Well, you know, I just I really thought we should make the thing blue. Well, whatever, nobody wants it to be blue. I'm speaking of now like if you were a product designer, which I was a few iterations of careers ago.

Speaker 1: 18:12

I hope you all are feeling me real hard on this mother thing, because it we throw the word around so much and everybody doesn't really lean into it and grasp it Right, because then you got you have stepmoms, you have adoptive moms, you got bonus moms. We can get rid of all those other stuff and those adjectives. The thing is, you're a mother. There's a reason why all the athletes, when they got the $100 million thing, they look into the camera and they say thank you, mom. It doesn't mean that their daddy was absent, it don't even mean that he wasn't a great father, but it's something to that thing of being a mother and you don't have to have birthed the child for you to be a mother. That's what we know in society now. So many of us are mothers. Don't let anybody fight you for that, because if you're doing the work of mothers, how come? I mean you can, you can use the title or not, but the point is you're doing the work.

Speaker 1: 19:25

I don't know how many of you perhaps wanted to have children and either did not or could not. Maybe biologically you couldn't, or maybe you looked up and you were 50 and, like dang, I forgot to have a kid. I was busy running these streets or crashing these glass ceilings and I just didn't get around to it. Anyway, right now you somewhere, you childless and you know you're not going to have a child, childless, and you know you're not going to have a child but does it really mean that there's no part of you that is already giving out mothering stuff? Alright, now, okay, and to everybody who actually has a kid that you are raising from like two or four or zero age, or eight or 12. Don't be blowing your horn and getting in my DMs mad like Jay, but that's I'm not saying that your mothering is unworthy, it's like two, it's more than one way to them all. It's more than one way to be a mother and as family caregivers.

Speaker 1: 20:54

And while we're in, I believe, like a critical point in the fight of our life, for us to get resources, acknowledgement, you know, time off, work, paid leave, insurance, all of this kind of stuff. First thing is people got to recognize what all we're really doing. If they knew we were doing the equivalent of being a mother for an adult that is almost like a kid I think we'd get a whole lot more respect, because everybody respects the air quote role of being a mother. And you fool around and tell somebody that you're the mother of someone with special needs man, people, the people. You know what the dealership might give you a car, oh my goodness, no, you're a young mom, You're a mom an unexpected mom and then your baby comes out with special needs, that needs other care. What can we do to help? Then you got the extreme house makeover people just giving you stuff. How is that not us? I mean more or less. I got a special needs adult, kind of now, kind of Don't, nobody come at me from the special needs community. What I'm saying is it's a big enough tent for people to recognize what all it is we're doing.

Speaker 1: 22:22

So stand up, speak loud, be an agitator. That's why I got on my Delta Vote shirt. We about agitation and changing the world and making it better. I think Zeddy would want us to do this too. If she could tell me to go fight for caregivers and change legislation and try to change how community views us, I'm pretty sure she would do it. My mom fought for what was better, what was right, her whole life. I really do love y'all.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Mother's Day means so much more than flowers or candy or a family dinner. It literally is the bedrock of all humanity. Who is the mama, big Mama, nana, noni, whatever you want to call it, the matriarch, the person who makes sure everybody gets what they need. The person who makes us get along forces us to have the hard conversations, and I'm just trying to say I want somebody to come and tell me what family caregiver ain't doing that. So that's my soapbox for today. But happy Mother's Day to you. However you want to define mother, you know how I decided and what I'm doing with it. But you know, I'm J Smiles, I'm a comedian and I don't have a problem doing things just a little bit differently.

Speaker 1: 24:06

The snuggle ups number one. What if the universe is specifically giving you an opportunity to grow Through this thing called caregiving? You know, just don't don't get pissed off with me too quickly. What if A softer side of you can develop? You can be more Patient, perhaps Less self-centered, less self-centered. What if the universe actually is pushing you to grow deeper, wider? What have you into? A personality that is going to help the world's whole vibration grow higher or get higher? What if a part of being a caregiver is actually improving who you are Now?

Speaker 1: 25:13

It sucks. The work sucks. Don't nobody want to Woo it sucks. It sucks that your LO needs it and it sucks what you have to do. But since we already here, I'm just saying just think about it. Whatever or whoever you believe in, what if that divineness and that major omnipotent power is backdoor making you a better person Is backdoor making you a better person, because how in the world would your skills not benefit you in other areas? All right, I'm just saying Number two, mother's Day.

Speaker 1: 26:02

Contact someone that you haven't talked to in a while but you respect and admire how they mother. They may not have mothered you, they may not have mothered your friends. It could be a co-worker, somebody in church, a neighbor, somebody that works at the local grocery store that you just happen to know a lot about them. Y'all know how it is. Sometimes you are at the grocery store, you checking stuff out, but you always get in Miss Betty line and Miss Betty is telling you all about her grandkids. You know which grandkid is in the army, which one is on crack, which one is working for Coca-Cola. You got, you know all of it. So maybe you just stop by and tell Miss Betty happy Mother's Day. Or, if it's somebody that you have a telephone number or email for, call them.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Often we get so caught up in whatever is making us sad that we don't take the opportunity to make another person happy that we don't take the opportunity to make another person happy. And in extending yourself to make another human happy, that boomerang baby, it's going to catch you right up in your heart and catch you by the neck. Catch you by the neck. You'd be like did I just make myself happy by telling Miss Betty happy Mother's Day? Yeah, you did, and you know what. And you can tell her on Monday or the Thursday after. I also have not met the mother who ain't ready to hear happy Mother's Day on any freaking day of the year.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Number three yo. This is your life. What you going to do with it? What you going to make of it? Right now, a great portion of your life is being a caregiver If your LO is not with you. You still remember what that's like. What are you going to do with your life, starting right now? How much are you going to let despair and dreary drain you? How much and for how long and for how many days? Celebrate the fact that you are alive and that you are much healthier than your LO? Whatever your thing is, if you watch it or listen, you're healthier than them. Like legit something as small as today.

Speaker 1: 28:29

Smile at a stranger on purpose Make eye contact and then smile. It can be from across the street. You ain't gotta wave. You don't have to ask him how you're doing. What's your name? Anybody? Go out your comfort zone. The more you exude humanity, the easier this journey becomes. All right, holler at y'all later. Thank you for tuning in. I mean really, really, really. Thank you so very much for tuning in, whether you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening on your favorite podcast audio platform. Either way, wherever you are, subscribe, come back. That's the way you gonna know when we do something next. Y'all know how it is. I'm J Smiles. I might just drop something hot in the middle of the night.