I was a caregiver, a stem cell donor and a patient all at once. The toll it took is something I’ll never forget.

Kim Elliott is the founder of Gray Monster, a free weekly newsletter that launched in January 2025 for adult children who are caregivers for their aging parents. As the U.S. population faces a “silver tsunami” — a rapid increase in the number of older adults — this dramatic role reversal is becoming increasingly common. It’s something that Elliott knows firsthand. She was thrust into the world of being a family caregiver to two relatives while holding down a full-time job, becoming one of the 59 million caregivers supporting an adult with an illness or a disability — and among the seven in 10 adult caregivers who are juggling a job with care responsibilities. It’s selfless work, and it can also be isolating and exhausting.

Elliott’s experiences inspired her to found Gray Monster to help others in her situation. The newsletter and social media account use humor (the name pokes fun at what it can be like trying to care for aging parents), along with advice and a supportive community, to help people navigate caring for their parents.

In this interview with Yahoo’s Rachel Grumman Bender, Elliott talks about her caregiver experience, the importance of asking for help and why it’s crucial to have conversations with your aging parents about what their specific wishes are if and when they need a caregiver.

I recognized early on that aging done well in the U.S. is a bit of a team sport. In my late teens and early 20s, I watched my parents care for my grandma, who had dementia. We lived in the same town, and she wanted to age in place. They were able to help her significantly by bringing care into her home. I was incredibly close to my grandma and would go over there a lot and help wash her hair or cook for her.

But it was two other caregiving experiences that drove me to start Gray Monster. The first was helping to care for my father-in-law, who lived in the same town as us. Before he passed away, my mom got very sick. I flew home to Northern California to go with her to a doctor's appointment. My mom had cancer several years prior, so this was an oncology appointment, and I was expecting another cancer diagnosis. They said my mom had a very aggressive form of leukemia and the only shot she had at survival was to admit her to the hospital immediately and then set her up for a stem cell transplant. So I was thrust into this really intense caregiving experience while working full-time.

(Spoiler alert: My mom is alive and in remission. I wound up not only caring for her, but I was also her stem cell donor.)

I didn’t have time to even process anything because the day my father-in-law passed, I got a phone call from my doctor. She said, “I'm sorry to tell you this today, but I'm referring you to an oncologist.” I’d had an MRI on my hip a few weeks prior because of some pain that I’d been having, and she was like, “They found a large grapefruit-size mass on your ovary, and we need to get it removed … and ensure you don't have ovarian cancer.” Surgery confirmed the mass wasn’t cancer — it was benign — but pathology revealed I had severe endometriosis, which resulted in the removal of my uterus, cervix, the affected ovary and both fallopian tubes.

After I had some time to reflect, I realized what happened to me speaks to a larger issue in society: Family caregivers ignore their own health while tending to the people they love. Giving so much care also takes care away from yourself.

The mission behind Gray Monster is to make this journey less overwhelming, less isolated and more supported. It's giving family caregivers the tools, the language and the connection needed to support their aging parents because it's incredibly isolating.

I want to create community. I want to support the family caregiver. If you were to ask me, would I do it [caretaking] all again? In a heartbeat. But I would absolutely do a lot of things differently. If there were any land mines I stepped in that I could help people avoid, I wanted to do that — that was the impetus behind Gray Monster. I would have asked for a lot of help, and I would have been really specific in the help I asked for.

The situation with my father-in-law was more of a traditional type of caregiving. It’s called caregiver creep — first, you're taking food over, and then you're taking him to the doctor, and then you're picking up meds. My mom's was obviously much more sudden. As for getting help from others, I would have been wildly specific. I would have asked, "Hey, I'm craving spaghetti and meatballs. Drop it on my front porch Thursday at 6 p.m." It would have been super, but we don't condition family caregivers to ask. We need to normalize the idea that it’s OK to ask for help.

I also believe very deeply that people should be allowed to age as they want. I don't think anyone looks at themselves and thinks I just want to make it so difficult for everyone I love. But the friction families have around talking about it comes from a real fear of the loss of independence. That’s why if there's an expectation of an adult child supporting their care or having any involvement, they should consider talking about it early. A big part of what Gray Monster does is to kind of socialize and normalize having those conversations — I call it “conversation before crisis.”

What I've learned is that everybody wants something different — though most people want to stay in their home — and there's no real right answer. I don't have a strong opinion on how you age. I just have an opinion on whether you're going to require support at one point and that you communicate it. And just because you're talking about the end of life doesn't mean life is over.

It's an uncomfortable conversation, and Gray Monster uses a bit of levity to try to soften some of those topics. For caregivers, we have our free weekly newsletter, which comes out on Sunday mornings. And we have an entire series that we put on our Instagram called Solo Mission. Its sole purpose is to support only children and family caregivers who are doing it by themselves. People also ask questions, and then we do the research to identify the resources; I have sort of a team of experts that I will farm out particular questions to, such as elder-law attorneys and geriatricians.

We do “Sick Mom Starter Packs” (and Sick Dad ones) with things to buy. Its origin comes from things that my sister and I procured when our own mom was sick, as well as from subsequent friends who have had family members become ill. Oftentimes, we’ll connect with an occupational or physical therapist to do a gut check on the things we’re recommending. We also do a weekly series called Parenting Parents — my dad inadvertently came up with the title for that series. It's really where we just ask family caregivers to share what they’re feeling. What are the big feelings, the challenges and the joys? Because there is a lot of joy. There's a ton of love in this.

I don't know a single family caregiver whose actions aren’t deeply rooted in a place of love.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.