A first-of-its-kind documentary on memory loss, parenting your parents, and the cruel cost of going viral

Thirty-year-old Bailey Kitchen keeps it real online documenting the difficulties and unexpected joys of caregiving for her parents with memory loss. Once badly plagued by alcoholism and mental health issues, Bailey's father Scott has no memory of his former vice, his attempt to end his life, or his absence in his children's lives. ​By posting online, they gain internet fame and a committed following—not without accusations of exploitation.

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Bailey shares fragments of her reality as a full-time caregiver and single mom on the video social media platform TikTok, amassing over 600,000 loyal followers. It's normal for Bailey's videos to gain millions of views, including this tough conversation with her dad  that sits at a subtle 14.4 million plays.

 

Thanks to her nurturing and unfiltered approach to a wearisome reality, Bailey's become a source of hope and entertainment for her followers who feel alone in their own caregiving hands they've been dealt. Bailey's openness has been met with criticism from viewers who feel her choice to film her family is nonconsensual, exploitative or clout-chasing.​

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Bailey is part of the growing number of American millennials who are caretakers for both their own children and their ill or aging parents, referred to as the sandwich generation. Her mother Rhonda also suffered an unrelated brain injury, and despite their divorce, lives under the same roof as Scott to maintain care from her daughters, Bailey and Paige. Bailey's 10-year-old daughter Lilly is also featured in the film. ​​​

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The version of her father that lives under Bailey's care is unrecognizable compared to who she knew as dad growing up, or the abusive man she and her sister knew in adulthood. In his alcohol-onset dementia diagnosis and resulting memory loss, Scott's personality 180° enables him to live life as a warm, loving, and affectionate father figure. Memories from his strained and tragic past are nonexistent for him—though no one else could possibly forget.

 

This dissonance, combined with his inability to form new memories, means Scott will never reckon with his past abuses. How far will Bailey go to reconstruct the reality of a painful childhood by embracing the new father she has now that he’s lost his memory? 

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Our film aims to confront questions about chronic illness and social media in an effort to explore the ethical puzzles that accompany sharing your life in the social media sphere. To accurately preserve memories of this unusual time in the life of a family privately and publicly battling this challenging work of forgiveness, our filmmaking team has integrated in-depth interviews with the entire Kitchen family and the family's neuropsychologist. 

 

Through candid documentation of their lives, our team immersed viewers in a deeper understanding of a family they may feel they know intimately from following their lives online. Also chronicled in the film is Paige's difficult choice to move cross-country to Chicago for college, leaving Bailey as the sole caretaker for both parents.

 

On TikTok, people aren’t afraid of showing the truth of what it looks like and means to be sick. Those who are chronically or terminally ill are searching for clusters of experienced communities who will validate their diagnoses and virtually encourage them to keep up the good fight.

 

It’s just as essential for Bailey to help other caregivers online as it is for her to get emotional—sometimes monetary—support from them. TikTok as a form calls for levity. In a story of its time, Bailey approaches a devastating load with a lightness, choosing to convey her reality with a gentle grit.​

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