‘I fret about the years that lie ahead’: the unique caring burden of single childless daughters

Many families overwhelmingly expect single women without children to take on the lion’s share of caring responsibilities for elderly parents. Painting: Sunny Day by Australian artist Clarice Beckett, whose days were consumed with housekeeping and nursing duties for her frail parents. Photograph: Alamy

I think of Clarice Beckett often. Not so much for the early 20th century painter’s exquisite, misty seaside landscapes. Instead I think of Beckett because she was a single childless woman upon whom the burden of care for elderly parents fell.

Beckett, considered by some to be Australia’s greatest female artist, lived with her parents for her entire adult life and, as they grew frailer and sicker, her days were increasingly consumed with housekeeping and nursing duties. To hold on to her own life and purpose, she would leave the family’s bayside Melbourne home at dawn to paint, return for a day of chores, then at dusk venture out again, trundling her painting trolley.