#careworker

[isbergillustration]

I think working through restrictions is an important part of the art process, and sometimes (three times daily at least) that restriction is a small cat who has decided it is lap time and as such 97% of art supplies are out of reach.

[lichtberg]

Die Übergabe/ The transferrence

instagram

[catgirlanarchy]

In preschool the school psychologist lady is working with a group of kids to manage anger. And part of this is teaching them words for their emotions like: "I'm sad, so I feel low now. My engine is low." Or: "My engine is running high right now. I'm feeling high, so I might be angry." And we as teachers all use these words with those kids too, to help with emotional intelligence blah blah blah. Anyway all this to say today at recess I watched a kid wind up to punch another and I said very loudly "(Kid name) are you high right now!?" on my way to intercept and like how insane would that be to overhear as a passerby. A teacher yelling at a kid and asking if they're high.

[anjalimehta]

For this year's International Women's Day, let's envision and work together towards a world where everyone thrives! Imagine a future where women are liberated from the unequal and unfair burden of care responsibilities, empowering them to pursue self-determination and financial independence.

Created this Illustration for @oxfamasia

Join us in commemorating #IWD2024 and working towards a more equal world. 💪  #FairSharesforCare

[bipolarsupernova]

[plenumofcare]

POOS zgłoszone do Paszportów Polityki 2024

w kategorii sztuki wizualne zgłoszeni/one zostali/ły: Tomasz Górnicki, Agata Ingarden, Karolina Jabłońska, Marcin Janusz, Bartłomiej Kiełbowicz, Mateusz Kołek, Adam Kozicki, Magdalena Kreis, Michał Laskowski, Ant Łakomsk, Dominika Olszowy, Open Group, Iwo Panasiewicz, Anastazja Pazura, Plenum Osób Opiekujących Się, Patryk Różycki, Turnus na Wolskiej, X-Philes, Liliana Zeic, Marta Ziółek

nominacje otrzymali/ły: Monika Drożyńska, Daniel Kotowski, Ala Savashevich

[ephemeral-winter]

sigh my grandma has hit the stage of not doing so well mentally and physically such that everyone in the family is kinda torn between “i love her” and “god i hope there is a big medical event and this ends soon rather than making everyone’s lives full of a new kind of miserable carework for the next 2 to 5 years” which is I think the worst place to be in when someone is obviously ailing but as we are clearly only at the start of this terrible journey that only goes one way I don’t want to make any kind of relative judgment too soon

[visaandimmigrations010]

UK Health And Care Visa Regulations Implemented March on 11

[riyanvisas-blog]

New Zealand Work Permit Visa Healthcare & Care workers Age Limit: 18-45 years Processing Time: 4-5 Months Qualification: Min GNM/ANM/Graduation Mandatory No IELTS Required for Graduates Positions Available: Admin, Accountant, care workers For more details Contact here: https://wa.me/+917036703703

[lead-academy]

Why do You Want to be a Carer - Top 20 Questions and Answers

[able-community-care-blog]

𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭? 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐮𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐰 – 𝟎𝟏𝟔𝟎𝟑 𝟕𝟔𝟒𝟓𝟔𝟕 Able Community Care offers live-in, care support (short and long term) in your county. •Currently we have availability to take on new clients from March Established in 1980, TrustedLive-in Care for 42 Years. www.ablecommunitycare.com. . #ablecomcare #CareAtHome #liveincarers #liveincare #liveincaregiver #liveincarer #carers #caregiver #carework https://www.instagram.com/p/CpN9b-0OPRl/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[catgirlanarchy]

Toddler in backseat as we are driving to his friend's house: Do you know Alex's name?

Me: ....Alex?

Toddler, amazed: Yes!!!

[biglisbonnews]

Biden is banking on chip makers to further his affordable childcare plans US president Joe Biden’s war chest of subsidies for chip manufacturers comes with strings attached. Those seeking funds will have to offer employees a specific perk: provide affordable, high-quality childcare.Read more... https://qz.com/chips-subsidies-childcare-provision-biden-commerce-1850167074

[heliza24]

Thoughts about Domesticity, Carework, and the American Dream in episode 2.5 of Interview with the Vampire

I’ve been mulling over episode 2.5 a lot. There was so much to love in the episode (the incredible writing, the kitchen sink off Broadway play of it all, the chemistry between Luke, Jacob and Assad, the vulnerability in Eric’s performance). But my mind keeps circling a couple of themes, trying to piece them together. So as usual I’m here on tumblr to try to work it out. 

I keep coming back to the way that Armand was gendered in this episode. His big complaint to Louis was that he was “home picking lint off the sofa”. He arrives with “mop and misery” to clean up the mess. Louis insults him by calling him “the good nurse”. All those things are feminized. They’re also extremely of the era; these are Feminine Mystique, mid-century housewife type complaints. The wife’s job is to make the husband’s life smooth and never worry about her own happiness. Obviously in the 1970s we’re seeing this begin to change thanks to second wave feminism. We’re in the process of trying to ratify the ERA, Ms. magazine has just been founded, and things are shifting. The kind of cheery domestic American dream of the 1950s is definitely shifting, and we see this in the episode as well. Betty Hutton selling sewing machines competes with Spiro Agnew resigning on TV. The watergate scandal signified a loss of faith in American authority, a kind of parallel destruction of the country’s father figure (brought down by journalists, no less). The comfortable lie of domesticity, the “prison of empathy” that Armand has created around Louis is crumbling. Armand is boring but he’s also bored, like a housewife taking valium to get by. The whole episode is set in an apartment that reeks of divorce, according to Daniel, and we’re seeing it play out in real time. When Armand lashes out to hurt Louis, he does it not through direct violence, like Lestat, but by holding his failure as a father over him, telling him that Claudia  never loved him. That jab, in combination with the way he’s edited Louis’s memories (gaslighting, another time honored form of domestic abuse) is enough to get Louis to hurt himself. LIke a wife who is always outwardly obedient to her husband but spends her time exacting petty revenge against him for the way he takes her for granted, Armand’s methods are never violent. They are soft and subtle and targeted.

I have to thank @bluedalahorse for first alerting me to the way the crumbling domestic American dream is threaded through this episode. And after she mentioned it I saw it *everywhere*. 

Obviously there is a level of complexity here in the Loumand relationship that this metaphor cannot fully capture. For one thing, Armand is a man. He was turned in a time before modern understanding of gender and sexuality really solidified, so in some way it makes sense that he would be the most gender fluid of our main characters, but his position would be a lot different if he were a woman, even a woman vampire. And Armand is very powerful. His insecurities and crippling fear of being alone keep him from exercising this power and walking away in a way that would perhaps be healthier for both him and Louis. But he is not trapped economically or socially in the way a wife would have been in this era. (That being said, I get the sense that *something* about the way the fire happened in Paris has made Louis and Armand go to ground. Maybe there is an element of being “trapped together because of fear of exposure”. But even then, I think my point still stands.)

To drill down and become more specific, there’s an extra added layer to the way Armand is feminized in this episode. I’ve written a lot about disability in this show and also the way it approaches eugenics, and those things were very on my mind as I rewatched this episode. (To be fair, they are always on my mind when I watch anything. Being disabled will do that to you.) Anyway, the specific way that Armand casts himself in this episode is as a caregiver. He is a beleaguered, bitter caregiver to those weaker to him. I think you hear this especially when he describes to Louis what happened: “you said the worst things you ever said to me, and then you walked into the sun. And now you are a convalescent.” The absolute sneer on the word convalescent.  The absolute disdain for being put in this position again. The way he denies Louis the blood and keeps him out of his coffin for so long. The “final act of service” in calling Lestat. And then the tenderness laced with fear. Will he “be on suicide watch for the next 1000 years?”. 

Armand is fascinating to me because of the way he seems to instinctively reject people who remind him of his own past weaknesses. Those weaknesses are buried down deep in his characterization, but they’re there and they’re important. He was sick and wasting away when he was turned. And before that he was an abused sex worker. You can see the way he dismisses people in similar situations in the way he treats Daniel in this episode. He calls Daniel a “broken boy” when he’s talking to Louis. He casually rejects the idea that there might be any sort of truth captured in Daniel’s tapes. The interviews on those tapes are with a sex worker and gay veteran and his disabled refugee husband. All of these people are so close to Armand in so many ways. I even think this is why Armand comes down so hard on Claudia, and why he cannot abide the true empathy and love Louis has for her. Claudia was turned when her body was weak. Weaker and more disabled, so to speak, than Armand. But they are not dissimilar. But Louis loves Claudia anyway, and respects her strengths. No one ever shown the love Louis shows to Claudia to Armand. No one ever granted him true empathy. The only way he has been able to hold on to any love at all is to grovel, to manage, to care give. The only way he experiences care is to give it. Of course he’s broken, of course he’s bitter.

So now we come to Daniel. The broken boy who has suicidal ideation and a drug problem, things that make him imminently dismissable in Armand’s mind. But Daniel also has a drive, a passion for life, and a love for the people who slip through the cracks. Louis and Daniel definitely share this great affection for humanity, and it’s what allows them to connect in San Francisco and again in Dubai. And it’s what makes him inscrutable, and captivating, to Armand. Because there really is no greater act of service than telling somebody’s story. Daniel describes himself as a therapist ironically in Dubai, but what he’s doing is carework. It’s real empathy. And Armand doesn’t understand that. Armand doesn’t understand what someone is doing recording the stories of people who were just like him. A whole universe of possibilities opens in the moment when Armand almost starts telling Daniel his story. Out of all the ways Daniel tries to save himself, that little life line of empathy is what almost snags Armand. But then Armand clamps back down, realizes he’s staring into a “black hole”. He’s trying to insult Daniel when he says that, but to me it just sounds like he’s describing himself.

When Armand is lulling Daniel into death, the thing he chooses to describe to him is the American domestic fantasy. He describes it as a fate worse than death. He describes it as a boring trap. And he specifically casts Daniel in the masculine, straight role in that fantasy, with a wife “vacuuming on valium” who “counts down his thrusts”. In some ways Armand is painting his own relationship to Louis as the worst possible fate that Daniel could suffer. (And it makes me wonder– did Armand ever wonder if he would amount to anything? Does he think his life has any meaning at all, if you subtract the vampiric powers? Armand has never stopped to introspect like this, but I wonder what would happen if you forced him to.)

But Daniel is stubborn, and his desire to tell stories and empathize with people resists death. I love that he still defends himself, still claims that he’s “a bright young reporter with a point of view” and that that is worth something. Because it is.

When Louis asks Armand to save Daniel, Daniel unwittingly becomes a symbol of Louis and Armand’s continued marriage. He’s a wedding ring, a vows renewal. He’s emblematic of the continuation of failing vampiric domesticity. And when Louis tries to repair the damage Armand has wrought, he isn’t able to offer Daniel soothing words about his ability to find a spouse or raise children or understand love. Louis doesn’t understand those things, so how could he teach Daniel about them? But Louis has always understood stories and humanity, so he is able to gift Daniel his writing and his reporting back. 

I think you can interpret Daniel’s failed marriages and difficult relationship with his children in a lot of ways. We could say that he was always going to fail at these things, regardless of whether or not he met the vampires, because of the discontent that Armand sensed in him. Maybe the trauma that this aborted gay hookup with Louis created was enough to re-closet him, and send him down a dark road of unfulfilled straight relationships. Or maybe Armand’s words really did echo around in his head and pull him down as much as Louis’s lingered and sustained him over the years. Maybe we’ll get more answers about this as the show goes on, or maybe it will live in the ambiguous world of memory and manipulation the show so often plays in.

Regardless, I think this episode was a masterpiece, and the way it firmly established these themes about the failure of domesticity and the burden and joys of carework are going to really matter, I think, as we hit the brutal conclusion of the season. When emotions are at a breaking point, especially between Armand and Louis, they are going to resonate because they were grounded in this little claustrophobic wonder of an episode.

As a little postscript, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with Devil’s Minion after this episode, or if we’re even going there at all. If a DM timeline happened in the past, it would require additional editing of Daniel’s memory, and I’m not quite sure if that reveal would work structurally. (I would love to be proven wrong about this though, because I would love for young Daniel and Armand to have interacted more, for Assad and Luke’s chemistry if nothing else. They were so wonderful together.)  If it were to happen in Dubai, or to happen again Dubai, however… well that’s interesting. Because older Daniel is disabled. He’s even more firmly in this category of people that Armand is apt to dismiss. And if they were to get together, there would probably be some aspect of caregiving on Armand’s part. And there would also be some caregiving on Daniel’s part, in his ability to listen to Armand. So that has the potential to be really fascinating, and maybe mutually beneficial to both characters. But I think we have to cover a lot of ground before we would be able to get there.

[plenumofcare]

Bal Osób Opiekujących Się

Galeria BWA Wrocław Główny 09.03.2024, Fot. Agata Kalinowska