The difference between taking care and caretaking

In the old days when you got married, the understanding was that a man would take care of a woman financially and the woman would take care of the man making the food and cleaning the house, caring for the kids and taking care of him sexually. This was an unwritten understanding. As the world changed, with woman’s freedom, men not financially helping with the finances, the irresponsibility of the new generations, and adult protective services started taking over our world and being caretakers for the elderly, APS used the confusion of taking care of someone to mean you are being a caretaker and at risk of caretaker neglect when it really is a difference in generational thinking from old thinking to new thinking. How were us older people supposed to know that APS had changed the meaning of this word? And men don’t financially think they have to take care of women anymore so women don’t need to take care of men either. Interdependence is the new term for a living together and each being responsible for themselves.

I had financially taken care of Ed for 5 years, we were committed life partners, I took care of all the things he didn’t like to do which had to do with working on the property, taking care of the animals, remodeling, and keeping everything up. He was not proficient with paperwork so I managed making sure the bills were always paid and delt with getting new renters for income. He had arthritis in his hands and his body was damaged from doing cement work for years, so I took care of all the hard work and my managing everything was my way of taking care of him.