Cannibalistic care names a failure the sentimental view of care never checks for. Care is one of the primary ways an ecology restores viability when a participant cannot restore themselves — an infant, an injured person, a frail elder — so it belongs at the center of renewability, not at its margins. But that forces a second question: is the caregiving system itself renewable? If one person carries three dependent relatives until they collapse, the ecology has not solved depletion; it has merely moved it onto the caregiver.
Renewing the whole arrangement
A care system that lasts has to renew the recipient, the caregiver, the household, and the surrounding support network — otherwise it consumes the very people it depends on. The trap is that such arrangements can look admirable precisely while they are failing, because the visible outcome (the cared-for person is supported) hides the invisible cost (the carer is being used up). The model has to be able to hold both facts at once: a thing can be good and unsustainable, and calling it good does not make it renewable. See Renewability.