An Immigrant Daughter’s Dilemma

What I learned being my mother's transcontinental giver.

By Annapurna Devi Pandey

Caregiving doesn’t always come naturally, especially in a culture that expects children to care for their parents as they age. In India, parents raise their children with the belief that, in their later years, those children—especially sons—will take care of them. Here’s what I learned when life didn’t follow that script.

I never imagined that I would become my mother’s primary caregiver from 8,000 miles away. Growing up in India, I was the only one among five children who spent most of my adult life living with my parents before moving to the United States in 1989. After completing my higher studies in Delhi in 1981, I returned to my hometown, Cuttack, to teach at the local college. For eight years, I lived with my parents, enjoying the comfort, attention, and rhythm of home. Those were blissful years.

In India, after marriage, daughters typically move away, raising family and becoming less involved in their parents’ aging process. In my case, even though I moved away, I was slowly initiated into the role of a long-distance caregiver. 

The Beginning of Caregiving

It started with loss. My father passed away unexpectedly in 1993 at the age of 64, just a few years after his retirement. Six years later, my younger brother, the sole caretaker of my mother, died suddenly at 38. My mother, who had always lived in a bustling household, suddenly felt old and found herself alone at 64. My oldest brother brought her to Mumbai to live with his family.

Every summer, I traveled from California to Mumbai, spending three months with her and taking her to our ancestral home in Cuttack. But I sensed her unhappiness in Mumbai—she felt constricted physically, socially, and emotionally. In 2001, I brought her to California to live with me in Santa Cruz. For 12 years, my life revolved around her.

In 2013, my oldest brother asked her to return to India. She couldn’t say no. She moved back to Mumbai, reluctantly. I was worried about her happiness. During visits in 2014 and 2015, I saw how unhappy and fragile she had become. I flew back and forth often, trying to maintain her care from afar, but the distance made everything harder.

Being a long-distance caregiver is a constant balancing act. I’ve learned to accept my limitations, collaborate with paid caregivers, and lean on community support.

In October 2015, I went to India for a brief meeting and went to see my mother for a day. My sister-in-law took me inside, and what I found shook me. She was lying on the floor with a fractured hip. I called a portable X-ray service, confirmed the fracture, and arranged for surgery. My brother took her for the surgery.

I had to return to the US the next day to teach, only to collapse on campus soon after, suffering injuries from the stress and exhaustion. Still, I flew back to India, stayed with her post-surgery, and finally moved her back to her home in Cuttack with two caregivers.

Since December 2016, she has lived in her ancestral home, surrounded by familiar neighbours and caregivers. I travel to India three times a year to manage her care.

The Emotional and Ethical Weight of Caregiving

Medical care in India is expensive and lacks social security. There is no Medicare. Government hospitals lack resources, while private hospitals are prohibitively costly. I have travelled to arrange my mother’s cataract surgeries and post-operative support.

Often in the middle of the night, from California, I call doctors, nurses, and medical assistants about her ailments. Also, I realize I became the emotional support for the caregivers to deal with my mother’s odd demands for paan, tea, and calls day and night.

Despite my best efforts, I constantly battle feelings of inadequacy. I can’t comb her hair, feed her, or sit beside her at night. She now has no control over her bowels, relies on others for everything, and has lost the will to care for herself. Caregiving has taught me patience, tolerance, and humility.

My mother has become childlike—innocent and vulnerable—and I do everything I can to ensure she feels loved and cared for.

The Bigger Picture

My mother’s story is not unique. According to a 2024 Agewell Foundation study on solo aging, 14.3 per cent of elderly people in India live alone, with a higher prevalence in urban areas. Many transnational adult children, like me, grapple with the ethical and emotional strain of caregiving from a distance.

The moral dilemmas are profound:

• Whose wishes matter most? Do we honor a parent’s desire for independence or make decisions in their best interest?

• How do we prioritize? Between caring for aging parents, supporting spouses, and managing careers, where do we allocate time and resources?

• How do we cope with guilt? The sense of insufficiency is overwhelming when we can’t physically meet every need.

Caregiving is not just about logistics—it’s about love, patience, and navigating cultural expectations, personal values, and moral distress.

What I’ve Learned

Being a long-distance caregiver is a constant balancing act. I’ve learned to accept my limitations, collaborate with paid caregivers, and lean on community support. I’ve realized that caregiving doesn’t always come naturally—it is a skill you develop under pressure, often at great personal cost. But it also transforms you, deepening your empathy and resilience.

My mother has taught me this: aging strips away layers until what remains is pure, unfiltered vulnerability. To care for someone in that state is both a privilege and a profound responsibility.

Courtesy American Kahani

americankahani.com

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Annapurna Devi Pandey teaches Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She holds a PhD in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, and was a postdoctoral fellow in social anthropology at Cambridge University, the UK. Her current research interests include diaspora studies, South Asian religions, and immigrant women’s identity-making in the diaspora in California. In 2017-18 she received a Fulbright scholarship for fieldwork in India. Dr Pandey is also an accomplished documentary filmmaker. Her 2018 award-winning documentary ‘Road to Zuni,’ dealt with the importance of oral traditions among Native Americans.