The overwhelming, invisible work of elder care

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vox culture contributor Anne Helen Petersen talks with Liz O'Donnell, an advocate for working caregivers and the author of Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Making a Living. They talk about the emotional and financial costs of elder care in America, how the burden disproportionately falls on women, and what everyone should know before taking on a caregiving role. Host: Anne Helen Petersen (@annehelen), culture contributor, Vox Guest: Liz O'Donnell (@LizODTweets), founder, Working Daughter References: "The staggering, invisible, exhausting costs of caring for America's elderly" by Anne Helen Petersen (Vox; Aug. 26) Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Making a Living by Liz O'Donnell (Rowman & Littlefield; 2019) The Working Daughter Facebook group National Domestic Workers Alliance Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall Vox Audio Fellow: Victoria Dominguez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Why is caring for our aging parents so hard?
0:07.8	I'm Ann Helen Peterson,
0:09.2	and I write for Vox About Culture.
0:11.3	And today, I'm your host for Vox Conversations.
0:14.6	When I was doing interviews for my Vox piece,
0:25.2	published earlier this year,
0:26.8	on the emotional and financial cost of elder care,
0:29.4	I heard from a lot of people
0:30.6	who were in the thick of providing care for their parents.
0:34.0	There was one woman who talked to me
0:35.4	about just how frazzled she was.
0:37.6	How alienated she felt from herself.
0:40.4	How terrified she was that she'd never be able
0:42.6	to find solid financial footing again
0:44.9	after caring for two aging parents for the last decade.
0:49.6	And then she apologized.
0:52.4	She was afraid that she no longer knew
0:54.1	how to put two sentences together
0:55.6	in a way that made sense.
0:57.0	That's how burnt out she was.
1:00.8	All of that was very familiar to Liz O'Donnell.
1:04.2	Liz navigated years of elder care while working full time.
	...

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