At 23, Omarion Calloway can’t remember life without caring for others. Before he was a teenager he was cooking for his family and navigating adults’ health care needs.
By age 10, he was bathing his grandmother and managing her oxygen tubes. A few years later, instead of playing outside, he remembers his “little hands” helping to lift his paralyzed uncle’s body.
He’s one of a growing number of Black boys and young men who have stepped into the role of caregiver, but society has not caught up to their needs, leaving their contributions invisible, several young men and a researcher told Capital B.
The New York University student is among the 5.4 million children and adolescents in the United States with family caregiving responsibilities. Most don’t know or consider themselves “youth caregivers.” They’re just “good” sons, daughters, and grandchildren.
Although Black and Hispanic teen girls are disproportionately providing family care compared to white youth, Black boys and young men are also becoming the main caregivers in their families. During COVID-19, Black and brown youth caregivers filled gaps in a broken healthcare system.
Basir Raheem Easter, who has researched how Black communities are disproportionately providing care for those impacted by Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, is troubled by the lack of visibility and representation.
“We were not being recognized. We’re the hardest hit,” said the founder of the dementia advocacy nonprofit Melanin Minded LLC, summing up the invisibility so many Black male youth caregivers experience.
Calloway says he didn’t identify with being a youth caregiver because he didn’t know the term existed.
“I really just thought what I was doing was OK and needed to be done. … I should not have had to do that, especially at a young age, especially at 10 years old,” he said. “No child should ever have to carry adult responsibilities at that age.”
Why visibility matters
Growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, Calloway says that he felt isolated and alone at times.
The college senior recalled how, when his uncle suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed from the neck down, he took on round-the-clock intimate care.
Calloway said he “always had this image of Black women taking care of other people. I didn’t really see Black men doing that, especially in the caregiving role.”
For many boys and young men, there are no visible examples of Black men as caregivers. They learn as they go or from the women they see.
Easter, the researcher and the father of a son who’s also been a caregiver, cautioned that Black youth caregivers experience significant stress, yet traditional support groups don’t address their cultural needs. During his doctoral program, he found that more culturally tailored systems, and interventions such as church support groups, are crucial.
“You’re not seeing Black and brown kids on websites and social media. What’s getting the focus and attention is that youth are caregiving broadly,” said Easter, who holds a doctorate in multidisciplinary human services and counseling. But it’s not recognizing that African American and Latino youth have been doing this for a very long time.”
It’s the kind of emotional and mental support that could help the Battle brothers in Nashville, Tennessee. Their mother is undergoing chemotherapy for recently diagnosed breast cancer, and their father has diabetes and suffered a stroke in March.
The teenagers take turns caring for their parents. Ryan, 18, works a part-time job to help with household finances, administers insulin to his father, and cooks breakfast for his family each day. Reece, 16, feeds his father and looks after his 8-year-old sister while their mother rests after chemotherapy.
Some might label domestic and intimate care tasks as “women’s work.” But for Reece, his parents instilled the value of providing care regardless of gender: “If I can help, I help.”
The costs of being the invisible caregivers
Jaden Easter, 23, grew up in Beaumont, Texas, caring for his grandmother, who had frontotemporal dementia.
No one outside his family knew that he was providing significant support for her — a reality for many Black male youth caregivers. Caregiving took a toll on his schoolwork and social life. But his teachers and school counselor never knew he was a caregiver.
His friends were not aware, and he frequently missed out on typical social activities like going to the movies.
“It was kind of hard, like, to tell other friends, because I didn’t really know if they were doing it, too,” he said. “I’m pretty sure other people had grandmothers that they cared for, but I didn’t know if they were as involved as I was.”
When teachers are unaware of the impact of youth caregiving, they can mislabel falling asleep in class, cellphone use, and missed assignments due to caregiving as problematic behavior.
For Black boys in particular, the misrepresentation of their academic capacity has serious repercussions. If educators miss the signs of youth caregiving, some Black male youths — already at risk for the school-to-prison pipeline — may struggle to find adult advocates to support their needs or, worse, face unfair punishment in school.
Calloway understands this firsthand.
“It was very hard for me, especially caregiving, and then having the teacher not helping me in class when I was failing.”
He said he reached out to his teacher, yet she turned him away. Another time, when he didn’t submit a middle school homework assignment because of immense caregiving duties, he was put on silent lunch as punishment.
“Why would you do that?” Calloway reflects. “As a teacher, you should know when a child is going through something.”
The mental health challenges youth caregivers face is widely documented. Research has shown that they experience high rates of depression, anxiety, bullying, and self-harm compared to their non-caregiving peers.
After Calloway saw his mother becoming depressed, he then became depressed. When he saw his mother attempt suicide in her bedroom, he found himself thinking, “If my mom wasn’t here, how would I even survive taking care of my nana?”
Ryan and Reece say that their mental health has suffered since becoming caregivers, with chronic anxiety and nervousness as the most prominent symptoms. They use sports as a way to preserve their mental health, but they’re open to more dedicated formal caregiver support.
“Running track is my outlet, and I put more determination into that,” Ryan said.
Still, there’s another burden. Food insecurity, difficulty paying household bills, and contributing to savings accounts are more challenging for Black and younger caregivers, according to a 2025 report by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.
Even as teenagers, the Battle brothers understand how the current political climate worsens caregiving costs. The steep Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will disproportionately hurt Black families reliant on paid caregiving programs. A recent study found that Black caregivers spend more than 34% of their annual income on caregiving-related expenditures, compared to 14% by their white caregiving counterparts.
Ultimately, Ryan said he believes the U.S. needs policy change to improve the life outcomes of Black male youth caregivers like himself.
“I would change health insurance policies. Households need immediate support and things fall to the household and they shouldn’t, like the hospital bills for both my mom and my dad,” he said. “There are so many different medications that are expensive.”
Calloway also feels that the U.S. government has a responsibility to support youth caregivers.
“You see a policy moving forward for young caregivers who need this, who need that funding, you should act on it immediately,” he says. “Why are we voting “no” to advocating for child caregivers? That ain’t right. Make it make sense.”
Finding support and a path forward
Despite these challenges, Black male youth caregivers continue to carve their own paths, not only for themselves, but for their peers.
Calloway and the younger Easter see themselves as advocates. They are spreading awareness about youth caregiving, disability, and age-related diseases by utilizing the reach of social media, keynotes at national conferences, podcasts and press interviews.
For his senior thesis, Calloway produced a documentary on youth caregiving because “I’m the type of person who tells untold stories, and untold stories of unseen heroes out there. Because I feel like conversations, especially by youth caregivers, are really important because they deserve a life as well. They deserve for their voices to be heard.”
He is also developing a digital platform entitled We Rise Loud to share the stories of other youth caregivers and provide guidance on applying for college scholarships. His self-help website, More Than Survival–A Young Caregiver’s Journey, for other youth caregivers illustrates his personal growth as a caregiver and serves as a mental health resource for others.
In 2020, Jaden and his father, the researcher, launched the Bridge Youth program to support adolescents caring for those with dementia-related diseases. The Bridge Youth program provides age-appropriate, culturally appropriate caregiving training for young people. They also facilitate academic and employment guidance for youth caregivers who have a unique and valuable skill set but have often fallen behind their non-caregiving peers when it comes to thinking about their future aims.
Interventions created by Black male youth caregivers come at the right time. As Easter, Calloway, and the Battle brothers step into adulthood, their stories illuminate a need for young caregivers to be seen and supported, but also a path forward.
“Whatever I thought was drowning me, it actually taught me to swim,” Calloway said.
