Living in a Time of 'Anti-Compassion' with Alissa Quart
So Your Parents Are Old
Vanessa Grigoriadis
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Journalist and author Alissa Quart joins Vanessa to talk about how to turn a parent’s art into a living legacy while navigating the impossible “third shift” of caregiving. They also zoom out to discuss the economics of aging in America and what it’s like to live in an “anti-compassion time.”
Read Alissa’s books Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream and Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America. You can also check out her NY Times Op-Ed, My Mother, the Artist, Discovered at 90, her most recent Guardian article, or see some of her mother’s art @barbaraquartpainter or in this photo inventory. Learn more about the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, or send them a pitch.
To connect with the team, find us on Instagram and Youtube, or shoot us an email at soyourparentsareold@gmail.com. We want to hear from you!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this show. I hope you're getting something out of it because I definitely am getting something out of making it. So if you'd like to join our community, the so your parents are old community, please head over to join campside.com. That's C-A-M-P-S-I-D-E. |
| 0:21.3 | You'll find behind-the-scenes content there, bonus content for all of our hit shows. |
| 0:26.8 | So join campside.com. |
| 0:28.6 | Think about cheese. |
| 0:30.4 | Make your thoughts cheesier. |
| 0:32.6 | Now add 100% chicken breast fillet, Chipotle sauce and Ameta Cheese melt. |
| 0:37.0 | And it's giving the new cheesy chicken stack at McDonald's. |
| 0:41.0 | Did we mention it's cheesy? |
| 0:42.5 | Cheese. |
| 0:44.6 | Available until the 4th of Jan, 2026 from 11 a.m. |
| 0:46.8 | Price and participation may vary. |
| 0:47.9 | Subjects availability. |
| 0:53.1 | You feel like I'm the Patsy who's doing all the care, and you feel like you failed at capitalism. |
| 1:04.0 | Here you are in a hospital room, you know, it's not going anywhere. |
| 1:09.0 | Like, how is this, you're not caring for your kid |
| 1:12.4 | or you are, you're doing everything kind of badly. And you just have this voice in your head that's |
| 1:18.5 | kind of anti-emphasy, which is the voice of our moment. Hello, everybody, welcome back to |
| 1:26.7 | So Your Parents are old. I'm Vanessa Grigoriades. So one of the things I've thought a lot about as my mom has declined is what we leave behind. My mom was a professional artist. She had many paintings in her apartment and I have a friend, Alyssa Quart, who is my guest today, |
| 1:49.1 | who also has a mom who painted prolifically through the end part of her life. |
| 1:56.0 | But it's actually a pretty different story and very interesting. |
| 1:59.8 | Because now that her mom is sick, |
| 2:01.8 | Alyssa has been selling and giving away her mom's art. And it's been joyous and wonderful and |
... |
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