Jayne Dowle: Don't forget Britain's army of unpaid carers

It's not the increasing amount of money you need to spend on skincare, or the acceptance that leggings actually do look best on skinny teenagers.

It's not the grey hairs that stubbornly refuse to disappear, or the annoying bunion that makes your favourite high heels hurt like hell.

Each of these signal a little step along the way, but nothing hits you as hard as the realisation that one day you will have to take responsibility for your parents.

The other day, I had to tell off my dad. I'll not embarrass him by revealing his age, but he's a few years off 70 yet. However, he's had an operation on his shoulder and hasn't been able to drive for several weeks.

The other day, he had a doctor's appointment, and without mentioning it – he knew I would have found a way to fit in dropping him off at the surgery – he took it upon himself to walk. It's a good 20 minutes from home.

When I found out he had trekked down there on his own to save me the hassle, I was cross. He smiled at me as I berated him, but it struck me that our roles are gradually shifting.

There are times when I feel like the parent, and considering some of the rebellious daughterly stunts I've pulled in the past, that's a very strange feeling indeed.

At my sister's recent 40th birthday party, I even found myself gently warning him not to drink too much in case it interferes with the medication he takes for his heart condition.

I think it touches him that I can find the time and space, with two young children and lots to do at home and work, to worry about him.

But he's my dad, and I would never question it being my job to look after him and my mother. It's only what my own parents did for my grandparents, and for my late aunt, who had no children of her own.

And there is the small matter of payback. My parents are brilliant with their grandchildren, and what kind of selfish daughter could be so uncaring to turn her back the moment they need help themselves?

So I was interested to see the new study from the Equality and Human Rights Commission highlighting the plight of the "dutiful middle-aged". I was even more interested to realise that I am actually becoming one of them.

I'm a long way off taking full responsibility for my parents, and I hope that they will be lucky enough to enjoy their independence for many years yet.

But I know from talking to friends that women – and it is especially women – of my generation so often find themselves torn between the demands of their own offspring and their own lives, and those of an ageing parent.

The other week I got an anguished email from a friend I was meeting to discuss a work project.

"Really, really sorry, I can't make it," she wrote. "Mum has just rung. There's a squirrel on her lawn and it hasn't moved for an hour. She thinks it's dead. She won't rest until I go and check."

The study finds that 25 per cent of women in their 50s consider themselves to be "carers", either for their parents, their partner

or both.

Most of these women do what they do – cook, shop, wipe bottoms and all the rest – without financial reward. It is reckoned that they save the country around 87bn by providing free care which would otherwise be funded by the NHS.

Many of these women, struggling with ill health themselves as they get older, exhausted and frustrated, are on the brink. Yet who cares for them?

I know that there are (still) various financial allowances which full-time carers may receive from the Government. But what about those who

don't qualify?

What about all those women who start off popping in to check on their elderly mother for five minutes every morning on the way to work and end up knocking down their working hours to part-time as she becomes frailer and frailer?

I know plenty of women in this situation, and I'm sure you do, too.

Almost three-quarters of carers lose up to 11,000 a year in earnings because of the time they spend looking after a sick or elderly relative, the support group, Carers UK, claims. Many of them face their own old age without a full state pension because of gaps in their employment.

In 2008, a committee of MPs demanded that family carers should be paid up to 110 a week. In the current climate, that looks as likely to happen as a heat wave in November.

So I'm not expecting any miracles. But seeing as this Government seems determined to tackle the whole system of benefits – and distribute state support to those deemed to deserve it the most – can I make a plea?

When the dust settles, don't forget Britain's army of unpaid carers.

When you get old, if you're lucky, they won't forget you.