The phone was still warm against my cheek, that specific cheap plastic heat, and I was already running the metrics. I’d just spent 45 minutes fighting the insurance company, 5 minutes explaining to Mom why she couldn’t eat the moldy cheese (again), and the last 5 days trying to coordinate a physical therapy schedule that defied physics. I felt, for a fleeting, ridiculous moment, adequate.

The adequacy vaporized. It became a sharp, metallic tang of inadequacy lodged right behind my sternum, right next to the memory of the $575 co-pay receipt I was still trying to file. Twice. I called once. And just like that, the entire yesterday-the running to the specialist across town, the waiting in the fluorescent-lit room where time dies, the careful not-sighing-was erased. It was overridden by a simple, easily quantifiable metric: Frequency of Contact. Score: Brother 2, Me 1. Failure.

The Mythical Job Description

This mythical job has no training manual. The client (our parent) is often unhappy by definition-they are losing autonomy, they are suffering decline, and their emotional regulation has been compromised. If a professional job guaranteed that the customer would always be dissatisfied, and success meant preventing something that is inevitable (aging, decline, death), no sane person would apply. But we apply. We sign up without reading the fine print, because the fine print is tied up in the profound, aching knot of love and duty.

I used to know a guy named Peter V. Peter was a graffiti removal specialist… He had clear, measurable success criteria defined by the complete absence of the problem. We, the caregivers, are Peter V., except we are fighting something much more pervasive than spray paint. We are trying to erase the inevitable decay of time…

That tension, the impossible gap between what we give (everything) and what is demanded (more), is where the breakdown happens. We burn out not because the tasks are hard, but because the emotional evaluation is rigged against us. We are grading ourselves on criteria-like ‘making them happy all the time’-that simply don’t exist in reality.

Redefining Success: Endurance Over Perfection

We need to shift the metric entirely. Success isn’t about clearing the whole board; it’s about endurance, self-preservation, and the consistent application of basic care, even when the gratitude score is zero.

It’s about understanding that accepting help isn’t a deduction on your dutiful son/daughter score, it is a strategic necessity that ensures you remain viable for the long haul. Commitment isn’t about martyrdom; it’s about sustainable presence.

Living Beyond the Scorecard

I still fail daily, if you use her standard. Today, she complained about the heating at 5:15 PM, even though the thermostat read a perfect 75 degrees. If I were Peter V., I’d tell her the ambient temperature is a measurable success. But I’m not. I’m just me, and my response was simply to bring her an extra blanket, without arguing about the number. That’s the real shift.

We stop caring about the score when we realize the scorecard itself is written in disappearing ink. We acknowledge that our exhaustion is real, our limitations are human, and that the only true metric that matters is: Did I keep going?