Bonney Dietrich does not want her daughter to end up among the latest generation caring for an elderly parent.
The social worker helps other carers and knows what it's like to feel so tired you want to cry.
"When I was younger, I helped my mum to care for my nan, so I am really conscious of making sure that my daughter doesn't have to do that for mum," Ms Dietrich told the aged care royal commission on Tuesday.
"I don't want the carer role to be intergenerational. I won't do that to my kids."
Ms Dietrich cares for her 85-year-old mother, who lives independently in Mildura in regional Victoria where the royal commission is holding a public hearing focusing on the needs of family and unpaid carers.
"I often think about when mum dies, I will know I have done everything I possibly could to help her," the 63-year-old said.
But sometimes it is just really hard, she told the inquiry.
"I know that when mum does die I will be devastated but there are some days when you just go 'I don't want to do this any more'."
Being a carer takes a toll, said Donald Laity, who now helps other carers after he and his wife spent about 20 years all up caring for elderly parents.
"Stress has a huge emotional cost to the carer," he said.
"It builds up and very quietly drags the carer down.
"They go through a sense of grief, a sense of loss, frustration and even failure."
Public health academic Lyn Phillipson said more funding was needed to address carer needs.
She said the budgets under the government's new home care packages program were not meeting the needs of people with dementia for meaningful activity and social interaction, let alone meeting the needs of a carer for respite.
Dr Phillipson, from the University of Wollongong, said carers had also reported being unable to afford respite services they previously accessed.
"It's been a great shock to them that in transitioning from the commonwealth home support program to their home care package program, they may in fact get less care and pay more for it," she told the inquiry.
Dr Phillipson said a person with dementia previously attending a day care centre for social support at a cost of $8 per day was now expected to pay more than $80 for the same service under a HCP.
"The costs have been prohibitive for many people. They're paying for the cottage respite, for instance, $800 or $900 for a few nights whereas they might have used it before as CHSP clients and it might have cost them $150 or something even less."
Australian Associated Press
