Thoughtful Study of Caregivers’ Plight

Retiree Jerry Cohen’s savings are slipping away as he cares for his ailing wife, Harriet, at home. If he put her into a nursing home instead, Medicaid would pick up most of the cost. “It just doesn’t make any sense. Any rational person can realize a home environment with a caregiver is best,” says Cohen, who echoes the experience of many when he adds, “I love her now more than when I first met her.”

The struggles and rewards of caregiving are given equal treatment in “And Thou Shalt Honor ...” (9 p.m., KCET), a thoughtful two-hour documentary by Harry Wiland and Dale Bell. Narrator Joe Mantegna, who looks after his mom in suburban Chicago, is one of 30 million (and counting) Americans caring for an elderly or disabled parent, spouse or friend.

The filmmakers explore the topic through stories and interviews from across the U.S., marred only by syrupy music.

One woman who cares for her parents and a blind sister says that it’s “like herding cats,” and that she needs three arms for the job. In another family, after the mother suffered a stroke, her three adult children devised an imperfect but workable plan: She spends four months a year with each sibling. Meanwhile, a stubbornly proud mother who lives alone in New York City refuses any help from her children in Pittsburgh.

Those in nursing homes, the film makes clear, depend on the kindness of overworked strangers, including a 28-year veteran who makes less than $10 an hour to hold the hands of the dying, among other duties. But William Thomas, founder of the Eden Alternative in upstate New York, and others are trying to reinvent the nursing home as an environment full of children, animals and plants.

A lively idea, in a film that celebrates the circle of life.