November 10, 2017 • 45 mins
In the start of a new miniseries on role overload, E&B interview author Liz O’Donnell to explore the trade-offs women face when juggling a career with caring for aging parents.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily, and you're listening to stuff mom
never told you. Today, we wanted to kick off a
new mini series all about role overload. We're going to
(00:25):
dive into what exactly role overload is in just a second,
but it is our take on the work life balance conversation,
if you will, even though I don't love that term,
but insert I roll here, because everybody knows that the
whole work life balance conversation, as much as I am
obsessed with it, is inherently flawed when you frame it
(00:48):
that way. So instead, we're going to talk about the
many roles that women play in society, at work, in
our families and how sometimes those can be put at
odds and can lead to a lot of str ress.
Today we're gonna zoom in on and really focus on
the role of working daughter with a guest who I
know you're gonna love to hear from in just a
(01:09):
little bit, who has studied this issue, who has lived
this issue, and who's going to help us understand what
it really means to be a working daughter in today's world,
and why we need so much more support and conversation
for women, especially women in their forties, who are juggling
paid work, child rearing, and elder care. Something I sound
(01:31):
so fascinating about this is that role overload really is
this term to describe this feeling of wearing many hats right.
Where daughters, where wives, where mothers were employees, were sisters,
were friends, were all of these things. This is a lot, right,
This is a lot to juggle, and sometimes these things
can actually be in conflict with each other. And that's
when you have what we call role conflict. That's not
(01:52):
just juggling many things. You feel like you can't be
a good employee and also be a good daughter. You
feel like you can't be a good mother and also
be a good something else. It's a sense that all
of these roles and all of these hats that women
find themselves wearing day to day are really not working
well together. Yeah, it feels like you're being pulled in
every direction. And I think that's like the birthplace of guilt, right,
(02:13):
This very social emotion of letting someone else down, or
letting yourself down, not living up to the mom you
knew you could be, or the great employee you could be.
It's like acknowledging that you're giving instead of can be
such a source of strife and guilt and stress for
the women I work with especially, And I was just
(02:34):
gonna say, at least in my mind, this is what
causes burnout. Right, you spend every waking moment feeling like
you're letting someone down. So if you're kicking ass with
your husband and you're not being a good employee, if
you're kicking ass with your parents and you're being a
great daughter, then you're letting your kid down. Right. If
you spend all day, every day feeling like you're letting
somebody down, that you're dropping some ball in the equation
(02:55):
from something somewhere, something is being left up, and if
your fault, like in a far away land, you can
just feel it's always nacking at you. That's what burnout is, Yeah,
I mean, it's it's a sense of chronic stress. I mean,
we could dive deeper into burnout, you know. I love
that tomic, but but it's just it's interesting that the
(03:15):
roles that we as women have played, especially in American society,
over the last hundred years, have shifted. Right, So these
concepts of rolloverload and especially the stress inducing feeling of
role conflict, they're relatively new in that if you think
about when women first entered the workforce in Mass, and yes,
that was a very white, a very middle class resurgence
(03:37):
because many women who weren't white in middle class have
been working for a lot longer. But post World War two,
women enter the workforce and Mass for the first time.
It's not like they're not also expected to have a
great Thanksgiving dinner on the table. To write, right, is
not like our roles changed. We didn't become male like
the stereotypical male model of the gender role. Didn't just
(04:01):
flip a switch. It just was another layer added on
to our expectation. Congratulations, ladies, welcome to the workforce. Enjoy
your like added you're compounded roles and obligations to society.
And I think it is interesting how men's roles are
starting to change a lot more. Right, we've seen men
do more around the house than ever before. We talked
to in our men missier than women about the numbers
(04:24):
on cleanliness. Guess what the data is in men are
still less likely to be cleaning than the women in
their lives. But this feeling of role conflict is inherent
to what the female role model has been and what
this idea of like what it means to be a
good woman in today's society can leave women feeling this
(04:45):
sense of being in a double bind right feeling guilt
stricken and worried about personal matters while at work and
worried about work stuff while you're at home. So you
never get a break. Really, if you're if you're feeling
guilty at work because you're dropping the ball at home,
and then you're at home you're feeling guilty because you're
dropping the ball at work. You're just feeling like crap
all the time, never getting a break. It's almost why
I love my weird schedule right now, which is like
(05:07):
super concentrated work binges when I'm on the road, and
then I'm very chill when I'm at home and I'm
much more present. I'm mindful about being present with my partner.
But when I go home for the holidays, y'all, this
probably this could not have been a better timed episode,
because buckle up, get ready for Thanksgiving, get ready for
the holidays. At home, that is when I am statistically
(05:28):
most likely to cry out of feeling like a failure.
Because my family, first of all, there's a lot of
them you know the you know, the right of us
if like without partners included, so there's more than six
of us around the table, and it always goes like this, Emily,
what am I going to get some face time with you?
I know you're a hot shot, I know you're really important,
blah blah blah, but when are you gonna have time
(05:49):
for dear old dad? And my my dad will lay
this guilt roup on me and I'm like, Okay, I'm
gonna walk with mom because I'm gonna spend some time
with her, and then like dad wants to go to
the movies to other We're all going to be together
all the time. And God forbid you should have to
answer an email like in a corner of the house
alone for any minute at all. Do you know what
I'm talking about? No, this is like I feel like
(06:09):
you're speaking my language. My family, God love them, and
they're all insane and they really like guilt is like
a currency. I just it's really you know, I could
talk all day, but I completely feel you, um, and
I think it really is about binding balance. What I
like about your situation is that you sort of if
you look at your you know, a calendar month or something.
(06:29):
It's like, these are my intense work times where I'm
very focused. These are my home times where I'm very chill.
These are times where I'm going to be guilt stricken
because it's Thanksgiving and I'm feeling all kinds of feelings
and I'm getting you know, but at least it's not
like a constant calendar year of guilt, That's what I'm saying.
At least you've got it like segmented. I've I've become
methodological about it because that's who I am, as you know.
(06:51):
So now there's like a certain hours cap on how
long Emily can be at home with with the full
family who I love. By the way, Hi mom um,
but it is you know, you have to know your boundaries.
And I think, honestly for me, being assertive, being unapologetic
about my boundaries, standing up for myself much easier to
do in a professional setting than in home in my relationship.
(07:14):
Well that's because your you know, your clients didn't give
birth to you, I don't think, right, So it's like
you know you can. It's from how the from how
the guilt is different. Yeah, it's like, well, these people
are paying me to do a job for them. I'm
going to do the job and then set some boundaries
that make my ability to do that job more efficient.
I know what I need to do to do a
great job for them. They want me to do a
great job. It's a give and take with your family.
(07:36):
It's like all collapsed, right, and then it's got that
added layer of guilt because they had you, they raised. Yeah,
the flip side of love, which is like guilt. But
you know, it turns out this this experience is far
from unique because in a recent study from m I. T.
S Working Family Institute, in households with both men and
(07:59):
women were working full time, women reported feeling preoccupied and
thinking about work thirty four percent of the time while
at home it's a lot, that's a kind of a lot,
whereas men reported feeling that way only about twenty five
percent of the time. Surprise, surprise, women are feeling a
tighter squeeze when it comes to feeling guilty when they're
about work when they're at home. Yeah, And it's interesting
(08:20):
because isn't a great percentage either, Like why in this country?
This is a very American centric study, by the way,
and it feels like a very American centric problem. Why
is unplugging so rare? I think it's no surprising. I
think it's part of it. It's because we glorify not unplugging.
The research is pretty clear that women tend to feel
(08:42):
that extra pressure of staying hyper vigilant on top of work,
which doesn't surprise me either. If you think about how
women are chronically discriminated against in the workplace, right in
a world that doesn't even pay women equally for equal work,
in a world that passes over women for promotions, it
doesn't surprise me that when women are at home and
are technically not working, that we are still more preoccupied
(09:04):
with work. What I found fascinating, and this isn't the
world of organizational psychology where these terms like roll conflict
and roll overload come from, is this spillover effect that
feeling of being stressed out about one part of your
life while trying to focus on another is even more
prominent for men when it comes to the opposite direction.
(09:26):
So women are more likely to be preoccupied about work
when they're at home men if they have a conflict
in their personal lives, if they had a fight with
their partner, if they are experiencing some kind of personal stress.
Men are much more likely to experience that spillover of
stress while trying to be at work. See that doesn't
(09:46):
surprise me at all. And here's why. So this is
completely my anecdotal opinion things I've seen. I feel like
women are socialized a lot more to do a lot
of emotional self reflection, and so if I have a
big fight with my mom, it's just in my nature
to talk to a friend about it, to spend time
thinking about it, you know, processing it. I feel like
men are not socialized to do that, right. The idea
(10:09):
of women getting together with their girlfriends and talking about
boyfriend trouble, husband trouble, whatever, that's a common thing in
their culture. Men not so much. And so I feel
like it's that, at least in my opinion. I think
it's that attitude that women have other outlets to process
and deal with personal stressors, that they're not breaking it
into the office. Also added to that is that the
idea that women, you know, if you if you have
(10:30):
a bad day with your husband and come into the
office upset, we have that added stereotype of being like, oh,
she's emotional, she's crazy. Blah blah blah. I feel like
all of these ways that were socialized differently as men
and women. That's why that explains why men are more
likely to bring their personal stress into the office, because
they're not socialized to have an outlet. Talk to your friends,
like be like spend some time processing. You know, women,
(10:53):
that's all over taught. You know, you're taught that, like
you're supposed to be. Yeah, when a guy sends you
a text, the joke is like, oh, you're like analyzing
it with your girlfriends for an hour, right, Like that
is what you're taught. I feel like I love this
piece of data though, because it flies in the face
of that sort of commonly repeated stereotype that men are
somehow better at compartmentalizing. It's not that simple. It's just
(11:14):
not that simple. I think the idea that we all
experience some kind of spillover of stress between the roles
that we play is an important baseline to acknowledge. The
other thing that this research really pushes back on is
this idea that role overload means women should just stop working,
right because someone might look at this data and say, well,
(11:37):
if you're trying to be everything to everyone, and that's
causing role conflict. Women should just get back in the kitchen,
you know, check out of the office, like because we
are or like want to be not working either or
right there are literally there are parts of the internet
that are like poor women, like they shouldn't be forced
to work anymore, take a load off, get back in
(11:57):
the kitchen, get back to child wearing. That sort of
most benevolent version of sexism. And the research actually shows
that working women, working mothers in particular, are more likely
to have higher rates of happiness than women who don't
work at all. I believe that's so easily. I mean,
my mom is a doctor and she's the best. But
when I was growing up, I would often look at
(12:19):
my classmates who had stay at home moms, and I
was a little like envious and be like, oh, they
always have baller, you know, lunches packed for them, and
like all these all those little things that you notice
as a kid, and you know, shout out to stay
at home moms. Nothing wrong with that at all, But
I know that I know my mom. She would be
miserable as as I stay at home mom. I know her.
She would be twitching, she would be turning the lives
(12:40):
of her children into her job and a kind of
in a way that's not healthy. She needs that outlet.
That's part of her identity as a woman, that's part
of who she is. And so I look at someone
like my mom who would be so miserable as I
stay at home mom. And so this idea that oh,
all of your problems will evaporate if you just stopped working,
that advice clearly doesn't work for everybody exactly. And so
in this series, we really want to look at role
(13:03):
overload in terms of, Okay, when is it that tipping
point moment? Because the many rules that we wear are
often core to our identities. Just like you were saying,
you know, I recently attended a friend's wedding and hearing
the people who were giving speeches say, you know, I
know this person from their role in the community theater,
(13:24):
their role running for local office, their role as a campaigner,
their role as a professional. You know, the many different
outlets and identifiers and activities that these two folks do
that makes them such an amazing couple. That's core to
who they are as individuals. But what is that tipping
point into the role overload domain at which point society
(13:45):
makes it really freaking hard for you to be able
to achieve your full potential at work. And the first
in this series that we really want to dive into
is often missed completely. I mean it's almost invisible. It's
completely invisible, because we hear a lot about working mothers,
but what we hear less about is working daughters. And
after this quick break, we're going to hear from my friend,
(14:07):
author Liz O'Donnell, who's going to shove light and what
it looks like to be a working daughter in America today.
And we're back and we are so excited to dive
into this topic of what it really means to be
a working daughter. Now bringing some expertise on this issue
(14:32):
is my friend, author, speaker, an award winning blogger, Liz O'Donnell.
Liz is the author of her book Mogul, Mom and Maide,
The Balancing Act of the Modern Woman, and she is
a recognized expert on balancing elder care and a career.
She's written about these issues in the Atlantic Time, Next
(14:52):
Avenue USA. Today, she's been interviewed by w n y
C our pals over at w n YC and a
lot of other fabulous radio shows and podcasts now, including
stuff Mom Never tells you. Liz, We're so glad you
could join us today. Thanks so much for having me, Emily.
So tell us what does working daughters that term really
(15:14):
mean to you? Well, to me, it means women who
are balancing elder care and career. It occurred to me
when I was out promoting my book about working mothers,
and I had this like one heck of a day
that started at six and ended at eleven, and in
between it took my mother to the doctor and to
get medication and help my dad driving home at eleven
(15:36):
o'clock that night, I'm like, Okay, working mothers, yep, that's
that's an issue when we need to deal with it.
But working daughters are out there too, and nobody's talking
about them. Yeah, working daughters, right, So many of us,
I think, immediately identify like, yeah, I'm a working daughter,
but it doesn't necessarily become a huge role that we
are identifying with until our parents get a little older exactly. Liz,
(16:00):
I'm curious, can you describe a bit about the extra
burden that these working daughter's face when they're when they're
sort of juggling all these different roles and in the
workplace and with their family obligations. What does that look like?
What does it look like to be a working daughter. Well,
the typical family caregiver is a woman in her mitchell
late forties, and she's got at least one parent who's
UM sixty five or older. She's got at least one
(16:22):
kid at home eighteen or younger. She works, and UM
probably spend they say an average of twenty hours a
week on elder care too. So I mean, you know,
there's the fact that she has three jobs, if you will, right,
she has a paid job, she has the parenting job,
and then she has the elder care job and UM.
(16:44):
And the fact that this is hitting so many women
at the time it does like forties, early fifties, you know,
that's that's when we're in our final push on our
peak earning years. UM, that's when we run the risk
and if we leave work and we try to come back,
chances are really good to bad. I should say, right
that we're going to be rehired. So there's a lot
of fear and pressure to make all of those rules
(17:08):
work at once. UM. And these are women who they're
not just driving their parents to the doctors. They're they're
administering meds, They're doing lots of medical tasks. They're doing
you know, wound care and injections and changing feeding tubes,
and I mean, it's stuff for you. You kind of
like to think that the medical industry is handling this stuff,
but you've got family members who are handling this stuff. Well.
(17:31):
That was one of the things I've found so fascinating
in your article for The Atlantic called the Crisis facing
America's Working Daughters, is that when it comes to being
a parent, there's no kind of shifting of understanding of
roles when it comes to childcare responsibilities. Because when you
have a kid, you understand that you are a parent
that's going to involve, you know, giving medicine, changing diapers
and all of that. But when you're talking about being
(17:53):
a working daughter and taking care of, you know what,
an aging parent, no one really talks about what that
actually looks like. Changing diaper, is, administering medicine, giving shots,
wound care, things that can be kind of heavy and emotional.
There's no sort of corresponding emotional weight associated with doing
those things for a child. Yet here we are not
(18:13):
talking about that extra sort of layer of of heaviness
and emotions when it comes to that that very real
role reversal. Yeah, but talk about stuff mom never told you, right, Yeah, Seriously,
it's such a psychological moment when you have to recognize
that your parents, who you turn to and rely on
for support emotional and otherwise, are now not in a
(18:37):
position to support you, but beyond that, are in need
of your support and return. So you write about the
sort of added psychological stress that can come with navigating
a role transition like that. Can you tell us about
how that was presented in your life? While while you
were starting to tackle these issues in the public domain,
this became very personal for you, didn't it. Yeah, it
(18:57):
really did. I was I mean, And so what happened
is too so many caregivers. That happened to me is
what they call the caregiver creeps. So your parents start
to aige you may be the adult child who lives
near them or for whatever reason, you know, takes on
some responsibility and so you start with, you know, maybe
mowing their lawn or helping them around the house, saying
(19:17):
to the doctor, doing the grocery shopping, and so it
creeps up on you until you don't realize that you
are the caregiver. And then for me Um, both of
my parents got sick at the same time, so they
were actually both diagnosed with terminal illnesses on the same day.
I went from one hospital and heard Alzheimer's and then
to the next hospital and they said stage four O
(19:38):
variant cancer. So my my story is a little crazy.
But yeah, all of a sudden, you're in it, and
you don't know that your friends are in it. I mean,
one of the things that was really interesting to me
is I have a friend Um, who I know through parenting.
You know, we both wrote blogs, we were both in
the Listen to Your Mother's show, which gives voice and
mother's experiences. Had no idea that we also have this
(19:59):
daughter hood connection until later when we started talking about it.
You just don't know that other people are in it
with you because it's not a really fun thing to
talk about. You're talking about disease, you're talking about dying,
and these are things that you know, respectable people don't
talk about out in public. So that's a big part
of it. The other part of it is, you know,
they talk about a role reversal where you go from
(20:21):
being the daughter and it's your parents that you look
to to sort of provide all kinds of support to you,
mostly you know, emotional and just being the grown up, right,
and then all of a sudden, you're the grown up
and that's that's a big reversal that you have to navigate.
And at the same time, if you're doing it well anyway,
you're being respectful of your parents autonomy. So it's not
(20:41):
like you know a baby who you say, well, you
don't even have to say, you just show up at
Dickcare and drop them off after you you know, vet
at them. Because but because you're not gonna have a
conversation with a three months old though I'm going back
to work and you're gonna be at this place. Do
you like it? But you have to have that conversation
with the parents. They're adults and they need to have
some economy and choice. Yeah. Some thing that that struck
me in the story that you were just telling about
(21:02):
your own experiences is bonding with other people who are
in that same situation. How important would you say it's
been for you to have a community of folks going
through the same situation in terms of dealing with this.
Is that something that has kind of helped ease the
burden of this a bit or just having someone who
you know is going through that same experience. Is that
something that folks should seek out if they are struggling
(21:23):
with elder care and balancing all these roles. Yeah, I
think it's huge, um, And that's part of the reason
I started the website Working Daughter, and I care a
lot about labeling things right because if labels like working
daughter or family caregiver, they give you a vocabulary. Vocabulary
leads to dialogue. And I think it's so important that
we you know, we don't go through this alone. It's
(21:43):
um not a team sport right now the way that
we handle it, but I think it really should be.
I mean, you know, just like parenting, it takes a village, um.
But if you're not talking about it, if other people
aren't talking about you don't know where to go to
get that support and that structure that you need. I
run a pride a Facebook group and they're about five
hundred and fifty women in there, um, and it is
(22:05):
just amazing. You know, some days are busier than others,
so you don't look at the group and you come
home late at night and you see the conversations that
these women and there are men and there too are
having and the way that they validate each other's experiences,
share so generously their own experiences and advice. It's just
kind of phenomenal. And I mean, of course we need that.
(22:27):
And I think one of the things that's so valuable
in there is there are so many stigmas around UM
caregiving and the feelings that you have UM. You know,
you can be really resisting the day that you're no
longer going to have a parent, but also wondering when
you caregiving years are going to be over. You know,
so these these two thoughts can be happening at once,
(22:50):
and it can sound awful that you know, you're supposed
to be this loving daughter, you're not supposed to be
thinking when is this going to end? Because you know
what the end looks like, but it's very real and
there so there are these thoughts that we have that
maybe the general population or people who haven't been through
it might think or you know, scandalous, but we know
that's just a natural part of caregiving, and so you
have to have space to have that conversation, and it's
(23:13):
amazing to me that there are so few spaces and
communities where folks who are really primary caregivers for elders
can find that kind of camaraderie in a country where
there are forty four million estimated forty four million unpaid
elder care providers, and we know that the majority of
(23:33):
those folks are women. So how does that break down? Like,
why do you think this is especially salient for women
who we know still shoulder the majority of housework and
childcare duties. You know, what does this look like when
it comes to impacting women's earnings because the majority of
elder care seems to fall on women's shoulders as well. Well.
I think that is part of the reason it feels
(23:55):
like early days around the conversation. I mean, there are
lots of great caregiving in general resources out there. My
own experience of many of them was that they assumed
sort of a lead it to beaver um, you know,
family dynamic and lifestyle, and that we all went into
this um. You know what a gift? Isn't this wonderful?
What a blessing? And it doesn't always feel like that,
(24:16):
especially when you're working full time. You have kids and
you know you're going out of your mind. It doesn't
always feel like a blessing. Um, But there wasn't a
lot that I found of practical advice for this, this
working daughter. And I'm sure that just speaks to you, know,
how long women have been at work and how long
was in primary bread letters and all that good stuff.
But the earning impact is, you know, it's really important
(24:37):
that we think about this because you know, I mentioned
that the average caregiver is a woman in her forties,
so you really run a great risk if you leave
the workforce about re entering. You also are probably experiencing
this compound effect, you know, so you may have already
been affected at work by working fatherhood. You know, that
could mean have you've been mommy tracked or passed over
(24:58):
for plumb opportunities. You might be you know, lingering in
middle management for the rest of your days. Um, probably
making less on the dollar than your male peers. Alright,
so all the things we know women experience as the
result of being mothers in the workplace, and now all
of a sudden you're vulnerable again at a really critical
age and time in your career, and once again you
(25:18):
need flexibility once again, you need paid time off once again.
You could be passing up opportunities for plumb assignments. And
it feels really stressful that you're going to be able
to hang on to that career at a time when
it's so critical to hang onto your career and if
you don't. You know, they estimate that women lose around
three hundred thousand dollars in lifetime earnings, wages, and benefits
(25:41):
as a result of eldercare. We're going to live longer
than men, We're going to have to fund the longer retirement. So,
I mean, it's just simple math that we need to
keep women at work exactly exactly. I mean, I couldn't
agree more. Um So, you mentioned that the average caregiver
is a woman in her forties, but you also mentioned
that you actually have men in your Facebook group to
deal with elder care solutions. I'm wondering, like, we know
(26:02):
that men also help out with Asian parents. What does
it look like for men and how is it different
than what it looks like for women? A lot of times? Yeah,
I mean the statistics, the average statistic I see is
that caregivers are a men. I've seen as low as twenty,
but I think it's safe to assume around forty because
it's rapidly growing. There are ten thousand people turning sixty
(26:23):
five every day, so um, you know we need all
hands on deck in coming years. So if if men
aren't caregivers now, you know, really good chance that they
will be soon. Um. I think the challenge. I think
the conversation is very similar to what you see with parents,
right with the working mothers and working fathers were seeing
(26:44):
more conversations in recent years about fatherhood and millennial men
wanted to be more hands on and have that flexibility.
So I think, you know, similar challenges around elder care
for the women. Those challenges are the compound effect that
I just talked about. You know, your squeeze the beginning
of your career, you're squeezed again later Potentially you're in
those vulnerable positions. Um, you know, you may be making
(27:06):
less on the dollar, you may be needing to stay more, etcetera, etcetera.
I think the good thing for women and it's the
same for working mothers as we have the conversations and
we have the vocabulary and the space to be flexible
and to talk about the impact for men sort of
the same thing. I think they may not have the
other um crunches on their career as a result of
(27:29):
being men in the workplace, but they may also not
have the same sort of safety and UM's the word.
I'm looking for permission right to talk about the stresses
of balancing work and family. So there's that for them. Yeah.
I also wonder if the workplace perception is different. You know,
we talked in an episode called The Mommy Tax about
(27:49):
how women leaving the office to go take care of
children are seen as less committed, are assumed to be
less engaged in the office, even though mothers working mothers
are shown to be some of the most efficient workers
in the entire workforce, whereas working fathers who leave for
the baseball game are seen as like charming, sweet, caring people.
(28:11):
And I would just wonder, you know they're there. It
does seem like this has more silence and shame around it,
because no one's bragging about going to pick up your mom,
you know, at the home to take her for a stroll.
Like it feels like a very hush hush uh workplace conversation.
And I just wonder if men feel that same kind
of penalty that women do. UM. Clearly there needs to
(28:34):
be more research to really get to the bottom of that.
But I don't know, do you feel like men in
the office might be perceived differently for leaving to go
care for an elder than women? Are you? Personally? I
haven't encountered a ton of men who in the workplace
who we're dealing with this, um, But certainly you know
you you all in and this is anecdotal, this is
(28:55):
not research base but right, I mean, it's the same
thing that you were saying. There's always the what a
great guy add a boy for the men who step
up to do family work right versus the woman who
was just expected to do it and makes us crazy. Right. UM.
I was at a panel discussion about a year ago
here in the Boston area. UM. Maybe ten people on
(29:16):
the panel talk doctors from some of the great hospitals here,
or top insurance company executives, top senior living executives. I
heard the word daughter seven times. I never heard the
words son. So I think that's the other thing. Even
if we are looking at a six split among family caregivers,
the expectation is still that we will be those good
(29:36):
douting daughters and that it's going to be the woman.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back,
we want to dive into what companies and what the
United States can do to make this stress, to make
this pressure for working daughters a little less stressful. We'll
be right back after a quick word from our sponsors.
(30:05):
We are back with speaker, author and working daughter Liz O'Donnell,
talking all about the double pressure that women with aging
parents and and who are primary caretakers for those aging
parents face, especially in those key income earning years in
our forties when we might also have children still under
(30:25):
our roofs who need our care as well. So as
we've talked a lot about what this problem looks like
and how they can impact men and women, But I'm
curious sort of what's being done or maybe what's not
being done to kind of address this. Yeah, I mean
I would say not enough. Not enough is being done. Um,
I would say I'm encouraged by the conversation. We are
(30:46):
hearing more about elder care UM in the workplace, and
elder care is an issue. So that's good news, that's progress. Um.
Sometimes it's still just a clause in a sentence. You know,
American workers need you know, maternity leaving, maternity lead and
paid leaves. You know, they're squeezed by take care of
children comma and their aging parents comma. And that's all
(31:07):
we're getting. But it's more than nothing, right, um, And
so what I really think, you know, we need to
label this issue. We need to have a national dialogue
around it, and from the work perspective, really make sure
that we're not just talking about the challenges employees who
are parents, but we're talking about employees with parents. I mean,
if you look at the I think the number of
working mothers in the United States is what twenty three
(31:31):
or twenty five million is the estimate. The number of
working daughters is around twenty one million the estimate. So
you know, why aren't we solving for folks? So not
just talking about apparently talking about family leave, not just
talking about affordable childcare, but talk talking about affordable elder care.
You know, not just talking about um mothers ramping back
(31:51):
into the workplace, but what are the re entry programs
for a woman who leaves at four year fifties? So
that's that I think from a workplace is what needs
to happen. Well, that's exactly why I found it so surprising.
One of the things that you point out in your
Atlantic piece is that the mayor of New York, Build
de Blasio, signed an order giving city employees six weeks
of fully paid leave, which is great, right, like pay
kudos for him, But that leave only applies to the
(32:13):
birth of a child or the adoption of a child,
not for taking care of a six family member. So
it seems like this is just being left out of
the equation that we're talking about family leave and family care,
which is awesome, but elder care and caring for a
parent is just being left out of that equation and
just sort of as being raised. Yeah, it's been made invisible,
and it seems like such an opportunity for the Democratic Party.
(32:36):
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that this isn't more of a
issue that's been taken up by progressive voices who want
to stand up for working class people, because this is
clearly an economic barrier. You know, we know that medical
expenses are the number one reason for bankruptcy, and if
(32:56):
we want to look holistically at what the challenges are
that faced the amor, can working people you know, we
need some leadership at least from some wing of some
party to really make elder care an issue, because we're
not going to have an option very soon, are we.
The aging baby boomer generation is I think the great
(33:16):
anxiety of the millennial generation. So totally yeah, how long
can we avoid the inevitable? You know, it's got so depressed.
You know, before the presidential election started, I was really
hopeful that it would be a key issue because you know,
Obama Ronne like motherhood and working mother. It felt like
(33:37):
that was every other word out of their mouth, and
I was like, okay, so going into you know, we
can hopefully have the candidates talking about elder care. What
a great opportunity to shine a light. But then, of course,
you know that election, Yeah, we're like all grumbling and
mumbling under our breaths with you. Totally different than anyone expected.
(33:58):
So there was no opportunity, much a missed opportunity for
a lot of things. But I would really disappointed around that.
And then you know, we're spending so much time I think,
just you know, defending and worrying about what's going to
happen to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That we're not
spending enough time UM focused on what progress we can make.
But still that doesn't mean that legislators at the you know, regional,
(34:20):
local level shouldn't be doing more. I think it's a
huge opportunity for someone to step forward and be a
leader around That's exactly what I was just gonna say that,
you know, even though it seems like at the federal
level or the national level, perhaps we're not getting the
traction that we had hoped on this issue, there's always, always,
always opportunities at the local and hyperlocal level and state level,
and so even if it seems like nationally the dialogue
(34:41):
is not happening, I think that you can really push
your local lawmakers and local representatives to start making this
an issue, particularly since it seems like a lot of
their constituents are probably dealing with it. Yeah, and I
think that's you know, the big obstacle there. And for
whatever reason, as you said, this debate an invisible issue,
and it's it's sort of like an invisible um demographic, right,
(35:04):
So the more we can raise awareness that this exists,
the more we can talk about supporting families and thinking
about the families who you know, extend multigeneration who are
carrying up, not just down, only going to help. Yeah,
And what's interesting to me is that if you look
at the migration of older Americans, there's been a big
(35:25):
exodus last I checked. Last I looked into this of
older Americans moving to states with low property taxes. Right.
I think Florida has always been a bashed in for
the elderly, but so is the Southwest right now, most
of whom are led by Republicans. So I just I
find it interesting that this is an issue that is
wide open for either party to take up and to
(35:47):
make solutions possible. On I was impressed and intrigued by
the fact that paid maternity leave, not parental leave, made
it to the Republican platform this past election cycle. Maybe
in name only, but um, but it really does seem
like these older folks are also the most reliable voters
(36:08):
in the whole country. So someone if if they are, like,
if we have a politician listening who wants to pander
to a reliable demographic, like, figure out how we can
take care of aging Americans, because it seems like an
issue that's just ready to be made mainstream, whether we
like it or not. We're gonna have to find ways
to talk about this. Yeah, excellent point. I mean, and
(36:30):
what's it's hard is, you know, we're going to need
the caregivers themselves, right to um, to band together to
advocate as a group. And I mean they're already carrying
such a huge burden. I mean, they truly are dealing
with labor death situations every day. But um, it's the
the recently former caregivers like me, hopefully who can make
(36:51):
a difference for the ones who are still coming through.
I have one more question for you, Liz, how about
paid caregivers. You know, I I'm the daughter of a nurse,
so I'm always thinking about how underpaid caregiving work is
in the labor market too. You've written that that this
issue of being a working daughter is not something you
(37:12):
can really and truly outsource. It's not something that you
can finance your way out of, and so it's an
issue that doesn't just impact certain classes of Americans, really
impacts all of us. Can you unpack that for us
and sort of explain what you mean by that? Yeah, Well,
part of the reason that it is hard, even if
you know you've got all the privilege in the world
to throw money as this problem is because you are
(37:33):
dealing with an adults and who does have autonomy and
say so, um, it's not just the caregiver who has
to be on board, right, it's the parents that you're
caring borrow has to be on board with whatever solution
that you want to provide for them. But the other
problem that you started, um, the question with I'm so
glad you brought up is the state of paid caregiving.
(37:53):
And you know, the National Domestic Workers Alliance is doing
such great and important work around this. Paid caregivers, you know,
are are often excluded from more place protections, um like
minimum wage and paid time off and um. Some states
have enacted a domestic Workers Bill of Rights, but we
need all states to do that because you know, it's
sort of like the dialogue around teachers and childcare. These
(38:17):
are the people who are doing such important work. They're
taking care of our families, They're taking care of people
as their most vulnerable moments, and we're paying them nothing
and they're working several jobs and they go home and
have to care for their own families. So right there,
I mean, I think that's the one of the most
important things that we can lean on our legislators to
(38:40):
look at. So where can folks find out more about
the work that you're doing and more resources on this subject. Uh.
Working daughter dot com is my website and online community
for other working daughters and sons. Are welcome to. UM
that's the best place. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Liz.
It has been truly a pleasure thing to know you
(39:00):
these a few years and watching you focus in on
this subject that needs so much more attention. So thank
you for being a pioneer and for sharing some of
what stuff Mom never told us with us today. Well,
thank you both. I appreciate it. So this is actually
a topic that is very very close to my heart. UM.
(39:21):
I think I've mentioned on the show on and off
a couple of times that my dad has a chronic illness. UM.
If you know me, you know that my dad is
basically my hero. Anything good about me and my life
who I am basically comes from him. And so we're
very very close, and probably not a day goes by
that I don't think about what his life is going
to look like down the line, and what it's going
(39:43):
to look like for our family down the line. I
think when you're young, it's not something that you think about,
Like when I was in my twenties, I never thought
about what my dad's end of life situation would look like.
And he's not anywhere near that. I don't think he's
if you met him, he's the most energetic, spry, life
living as person you've ever met. So don't don't get
the wrong idea. But once I think a family member
(40:04):
becomes chronically ill, it like hits you, right, It hits
you how short life is, and that as a child,
you will probably have to have some role in this.
And that was something that had never occurred to me
when I was in high school in my twenties. It
wasn't until I found out that my dad was sick
that this was even the thing on my radar. Did
it impact like your life directly? Do you feel like
(40:24):
it's impact of the way you make choices? Yes, I
never want to be too far away from where my
parents live because if something happens and I want to
go back right away, I want to be able to
get there. And I mean, I'm not even someone who
visits as much as I should, but I just like knowing,
you know, hey, if something happened, it wouldn't be a
complicated cross country flight. I could happen a car, get
on a train, and be home. I think I made
(40:46):
a lot of choices based around that. And I think
if my family knew what an emotional wait this was
for me and how it impacts a lot of my
thinking and choice making and all of that, they would
be just pointed. They would not want me to be
living my life this way. But it's hard, and I
think for me, as someone who has only been sort
(41:07):
of getting to know what this feels like pretty recently
in life, I think it's a bit of a balancing
act of like how you make heads or tails of
this new thing that frankly you never thought you were
gonna be dealing with and your pre caretaking, right, this
is not like you're taking an active roles, But do
you know that it's coming. I know that it's coming,
(41:27):
and I know that you know. I know that with
as close as I am to my dad, I know
that will never be in a situation where like someone
else is doing caretaking like it's me, right, Like, so
are you saying that you want to take up the
mantle correct and you don't want to find yourself in
a position of delegating their responsibility or paying for for
(41:49):
professional caretakers. And I have to ask you, do you
think that's has anything to do with an identity as
being a woman, Like are you more likely to take
on that man tool and like kind of want to
martyr yourself for this or is it is it a
conscious choice? Like without what? I think it's both. I
think one is just that my dad and I have
a really close relationship, and so you know, and I
(42:11):
also I know my dad right, Like, my dad would
never want to have a stranger in his home doing
things for him. My dad wants to do things on
his own, and if someone has to do things for him,
it's not going to be a stranger in our house
because my dad's does not like that. And so one
is just from having a close relationship with my parents. Two,
I do think it's gendered. I mean, all the research
suggests that women do end up doing most of this
(42:33):
kind of work. And I think that as the only
daughter in my family, I think that there is an
expectation that as the as the girl that will fall
on me. I do wonder if it's also cultural because
the idea of delegating family obligation to outsiders seems very foreign,
particularly in my family. My family is in my black
(42:53):
family that we're talking about. This is stuff your black
mom never told you. Perfect, So I wonder, like I mean,
on all the research, there was very little, shockingly little
on elder care as it comes to race in the
United States, other than the racial makeup of professional caregivers,
(43:14):
which is very non white, And so I wonder if
how that impacts only decision making. I would love to
see search around that, just anecdotally, again, I have not
seen this research, but anecdotally, I would think that caregiving,
hiring outside caregiving is something that communities of color perhaps
are not doing at rates that are as high as
(43:35):
their white counterparts. That would be my assumption. And I think,
if I recall correctly, Latino families are much more likely
to have multiple generations living under the same room exactly,
which I think is becoming much more of a thing
um And it is probably where I see myself in
the future in terms of elder care. But I don't know.
(43:56):
I'm dying to hear from our listeners on this right
because it is such a private conversation that's fraught even
within every family. So it's like there's very few places
other than perhaps Liz's Facebook group, where people are having
these conversations amongst caregivers, amongst decision makers who are navigating
(44:17):
these choice moments within each of their own families. And
it feels to me like we need to be talking
a lot more about this to bring the conversation out
of the shadows, to get some public policy support on
an issue that barely has a name. So, working daughters,
we want to hear from you. Do you identify as
a working daughter? Do you feel the squeeze that Liz
was talking about, perhaps a lot more than Bridget and
(44:39):
I do right now, right as being unwed, unmarried, childless women,
which we'll talk more about in this series. But you know,
what does it feel like to play those different roles
of mother of daughter to an aging parent and of
course in your professional life, how does that show up? Yeah,
(44:59):
I'm really curious how other folks are navigating this. Are
you someone like me who is just now starting to
think about these things and how they'll show up in
your life? Is a partner or someone else that you
know going through this. I'm just really curious how this
issue is showing up in people's lives, so make sure
to hit us up on Instagram at stuff Mom Never
Told You, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and as always,
we love getting your emails at mom stuff at how
(45:22):
stuff works dot com
Hey, this is Emily, and you're listening to stuff mom
never told you. Today, we wanted to kick off a
new mini series all about role overload. We're going to
(00:25):
dive into what exactly role overload is in just a second,
but it is our take on the work life balance conversation,
if you will, even though I don't love that term,
but insert I roll here, because everybody knows that the
whole work life balance conversation, as much as I am
obsessed with it, is inherently flawed when you frame it
(00:48):
that way. So instead, we're going to talk about the
many roles that women play in society, at work, in
our families and how sometimes those can be put at
odds and can lead to a lot of str ress.
Today we're gonna zoom in on and really focus on
the role of working daughter with a guest who I
know you're gonna love to hear from in just a
(01:09):
little bit, who has studied this issue, who has lived
this issue, and who's going to help us understand what
it really means to be a working daughter in today's world,
and why we need so much more support and conversation
for women, especially women in their forties, who are juggling
paid work, child rearing, and elder care. Something I sound
(01:31):
so fascinating about this is that role overload really is
this term to describe this feeling of wearing many hats right.
Where daughters, where wives, where mothers were employees, were sisters,
were friends, were all of these things. This is a lot, right,
This is a lot to juggle, and sometimes these things
can actually be in conflict with each other. And that's
when you have what we call role conflict. That's not
(01:52):
just juggling many things. You feel like you can't be
a good employee and also be a good daughter. You
feel like you can't be a good mother and also
be a good something else. It's a sense that all
of these roles and all of these hats that women
find themselves wearing day to day are really not working
well together. Yeah, it feels like you're being pulled in
every direction. And I think that's like the birthplace of guilt, right,
(02:13):
This very social emotion of letting someone else down, or
letting yourself down, not living up to the mom you
knew you could be, or the great employee you could be.
It's like acknowledging that you're giving instead of can be
such a source of strife and guilt and stress for
the women I work with especially, And I was just
(02:34):
gonna say, at least in my mind, this is what
causes burnout. Right, you spend every waking moment feeling like
you're letting someone down. So if you're kicking ass with
your husband and you're not being a good employee, if
you're kicking ass with your parents and you're being a
great daughter, then you're letting your kid down. Right. If
you spend all day, every day feeling like you're letting
somebody down, that you're dropping some ball in the equation
(02:55):
from something somewhere, something is being left up, and if
your fault, like in a far away land, you can
just feel it's always nacking at you. That's what burnout is, Yeah,
I mean, it's it's a sense of chronic stress. I mean,
we could dive deeper into burnout, you know. I love
that tomic, but but it's just it's interesting that the
(03:15):
roles that we as women have played, especially in American society,
over the last hundred years, have shifted. Right, So these
concepts of rolloverload and especially the stress inducing feeling of
role conflict, they're relatively new in that if you think
about when women first entered the workforce in Mass, and yes,
that was a very white, a very middle class resurgence
(03:37):
because many women who weren't white in middle class have
been working for a lot longer. But post World War two,
women enter the workforce and Mass for the first time.
It's not like they're not also expected to have a
great Thanksgiving dinner on the table. To write, right, is
not like our roles changed. We didn't become male like
the stereotypical male model of the gender role. Didn't just
(04:01):
flip a switch. It just was another layer added on
to our expectation. Congratulations, ladies, welcome to the workforce. Enjoy
your like added you're compounded roles and obligations to society.
And I think it is interesting how men's roles are
starting to change a lot more. Right, we've seen men
do more around the house than ever before. We talked
to in our men missier than women about the numbers
(04:24):
on cleanliness. Guess what the data is in men are
still less likely to be cleaning than the women in
their lives. But this feeling of role conflict is inherent
to what the female role model has been and what
this idea of like what it means to be a
good woman in today's society can leave women feeling this
(04:45):
sense of being in a double bind right feeling guilt
stricken and worried about personal matters while at work and
worried about work stuff while you're at home. So you
never get a break. Really, if you're if you're feeling
guilty at work because you're dropping the ball at home,
and then you're at home you're feeling guilty because you're
dropping the ball at work. You're just feeling like crap
all the time, never getting a break. It's almost why
I love my weird schedule right now, which is like
(05:07):
super concentrated work binges when I'm on the road, and
then I'm very chill when I'm at home and I'm
much more present. I'm mindful about being present with my partner.
But when I go home for the holidays, y'all, this
probably this could not have been a better timed episode,
because buckle up, get ready for Thanksgiving, get ready for
the holidays. At home, that is when I am statistically
(05:28):
most likely to cry out of feeling like a failure.
Because my family, first of all, there's a lot of
them you know the you know, the right of us
if like without partners included, so there's more than six
of us around the table, and it always goes like this, Emily,
what am I going to get some face time with you?
I know you're a hot shot, I know you're really important,
blah blah blah, but when are you gonna have time
(05:49):
for dear old dad? And my my dad will lay
this guilt roup on me and I'm like, Okay, I'm
gonna walk with mom because I'm gonna spend some time
with her, and then like dad wants to go to
the movies to other We're all going to be together
all the time. And God forbid you should have to
answer an email like in a corner of the house
alone for any minute at all. Do you know what
I'm talking about? No, this is like I feel like
(06:09):
you're speaking my language. My family, God love them, and
they're all insane and they really like guilt is like
a currency. I just it's really you know, I could
talk all day, but I completely feel you, um, and
I think it really is about binding balance. What I
like about your situation is that you sort of if
you look at your you know, a calendar month or something.
(06:29):
It's like, these are my intense work times where I'm
very focused. These are my home times where I'm very chill.
These are times where I'm going to be guilt stricken
because it's Thanksgiving and I'm feeling all kinds of feelings
and I'm getting you know, but at least it's not
like a constant calendar year of guilt, That's what I'm saying.
At least you've got it like segmented. I've I've become
methodological about it because that's who I am, as you know.
(06:51):
So now there's like a certain hours cap on how
long Emily can be at home with with the full
family who I love. By the way, Hi mom um,
but it is you know, you have to know your boundaries.
And I think, honestly for me, being assertive, being unapologetic
about my boundaries, standing up for myself much easier to
do in a professional setting than in home in my relationship.
(07:14):
Well that's because your you know, your clients didn't give
birth to you, I don't think, right, So it's like
you know you can. It's from how the from how
the guilt is different. Yeah, it's like, well, these people
are paying me to do a job for them. I'm
going to do the job and then set some boundaries
that make my ability to do that job more efficient.
I know what I need to do to do a
great job for them. They want me to do a
great job. It's a give and take with your family.
(07:36):
It's like all collapsed, right, and then it's got that
added layer of guilt because they had you, they raised. Yeah,
the flip side of love, which is like guilt. But
you know, it turns out this this experience is far
from unique because in a recent study from m I. T.
S Working Family Institute, in households with both men and
(07:59):
women were working full time, women reported feeling preoccupied and
thinking about work thirty four percent of the time while
at home it's a lot, that's a kind of a lot,
whereas men reported feeling that way only about twenty five
percent of the time. Surprise, surprise, women are feeling a
tighter squeeze when it comes to feeling guilty when they're
about work when they're at home. Yeah, And it's interesting
(08:20):
because isn't a great percentage either, Like why in this country?
This is a very American centric study, by the way,
and it feels like a very American centric problem. Why
is unplugging so rare? I think it's no surprising. I
think it's part of it. It's because we glorify not unplugging.
The research is pretty clear that women tend to feel
(08:42):
that extra pressure of staying hyper vigilant on top of work,
which doesn't surprise me either. If you think about how
women are chronically discriminated against in the workplace, right in
a world that doesn't even pay women equally for equal work,
in a world that passes over women for promotions, it
doesn't surprise me that when women are at home and
are technically not working, that we are still more preoccupied
(09:04):
with work. What I found fascinating, and this isn't the
world of organizational psychology where these terms like roll conflict
and roll overload come from, is this spillover effect that
feeling of being stressed out about one part of your
life while trying to focus on another is even more
prominent for men when it comes to the opposite direction.
(09:26):
So women are more likely to be preoccupied about work
when they're at home men if they have a conflict
in their personal lives, if they had a fight with
their partner, if they are experiencing some kind of personal stress.
Men are much more likely to experience that spillover of
stress while trying to be at work. See that doesn't
(09:46):
surprise me at all. And here's why. So this is
completely my anecdotal opinion things I've seen. I feel like
women are socialized a lot more to do a lot
of emotional self reflection, and so if I have a
big fight with my mom, it's just in my nature
to talk to a friend about it, to spend time
thinking about it, you know, processing it. I feel like
men are not socialized to do that, right. The idea
(10:09):
of women getting together with their girlfriends and talking about
boyfriend trouble, husband trouble, whatever, that's a common thing in
their culture. Men not so much. And so I feel
like it's that, at least in my opinion. I think
it's that attitude that women have other outlets to process
and deal with personal stressors, that they're not breaking it
into the office. Also added to that is that the
idea that women, you know, if you if you have
(10:30):
a bad day with your husband and come into the
office upset, we have that added stereotype of being like, oh,
she's emotional, she's crazy. Blah blah blah. I feel like
all of these ways that were socialized differently as men
and women. That's why that explains why men are more
likely to bring their personal stress into the office, because
they're not socialized to have an outlet. Talk to your friends,
like be like spend some time processing. You know, women,
(10:53):
that's all over taught. You know, you're taught that, like
you're supposed to be. Yeah, when a guy sends you
a text, the joke is like, oh, you're like analyzing
it with your girlfriends for an hour, right, Like that
is what you're taught. I feel like I love this
piece of data though, because it flies in the face
of that sort of commonly repeated stereotype that men are
somehow better at compartmentalizing. It's not that simple. It's just
(11:14):
not that simple. I think the idea that we all
experience some kind of spillover of stress between the roles
that we play is an important baseline to acknowledge. The
other thing that this research really pushes back on is
this idea that role overload means women should just stop working,
right because someone might look at this data and say, well,
(11:37):
if you're trying to be everything to everyone, and that's
causing role conflict. Women should just get back in the kitchen,
you know, check out of the office, like because we
are or like want to be not working either or
right there are literally there are parts of the internet
that are like poor women, like they shouldn't be forced
to work anymore, take a load off, get back in
(11:57):
the kitchen, get back to child wearing. That sort of
most benevolent version of sexism. And the research actually shows
that working women, working mothers in particular, are more likely
to have higher rates of happiness than women who don't
work at all. I believe that's so easily. I mean,
my mom is a doctor and she's the best. But
when I was growing up, I would often look at
(12:19):
my classmates who had stay at home moms, and I
was a little like envious and be like, oh, they
always have baller, you know, lunches packed for them, and
like all these all those little things that you notice
as a kid, and you know, shout out to stay
at home moms. Nothing wrong with that at all, But
I know that I know my mom. She would be
miserable as as I stay at home mom. I know her.
She would be twitching, she would be turning the lives
(12:40):
of her children into her job and a kind of
in a way that's not healthy. She needs that outlet.
That's part of her identity as a woman, that's part
of who she is. And so I look at someone
like my mom who would be so miserable as I
stay at home mom. And so this idea that oh,
all of your problems will evaporate if you just stopped working,
that advice clearly doesn't work for everybody exactly. And so
in this series, we really want to look at role
(13:03):
overload in terms of, Okay, when is it that tipping
point moment? Because the many rules that we wear are
often core to our identities. Just like you were saying,
you know, I recently attended a friend's wedding and hearing
the people who were giving speeches say, you know, I
know this person from their role in the community theater,
(13:24):
their role running for local office, their role as a campaigner,
their role as a professional. You know, the many different
outlets and identifiers and activities that these two folks do
that makes them such an amazing couple. That's core to
who they are as individuals. But what is that tipping
point into the role overload domain at which point society
(13:45):
makes it really freaking hard for you to be able
to achieve your full potential at work. And the first
in this series that we really want to dive into
is often missed completely. I mean it's almost invisible. It's
completely invisible, because we hear a lot about working mothers,
but what we hear less about is working daughters. And
after this quick break, we're going to hear from my friend,
(14:07):
author Liz O'Donnell, who's going to shove light and what
it looks like to be a working daughter in America today.
And we're back and we are so excited to dive
into this topic of what it really means to be
a working daughter. Now bringing some expertise on this issue
(14:32):
is my friend, author, speaker, an award winning blogger, Liz O'Donnell.
Liz is the author of her book Mogul, Mom and Maide,
The Balancing Act of the Modern Woman, and she is
a recognized expert on balancing elder care and a career.
She's written about these issues in the Atlantic Time, Next
(14:52):
Avenue USA. Today, she's been interviewed by w n y
C our pals over at w n YC and a
lot of other fabulous radio shows and podcasts now, including
stuff Mom Never tells you. Liz, We're so glad you
could join us today. Thanks so much for having me, Emily.
So tell us what does working daughters that term really
(15:14):
mean to you? Well, to me, it means women who
are balancing elder care and career. It occurred to me
when I was out promoting my book about working mothers,
and I had this like one heck of a day
that started at six and ended at eleven, and in
between it took my mother to the doctor and to
get medication and help my dad driving home at eleven
(15:36):
o'clock that night, I'm like, Okay, working mothers, yep, that's
that's an issue when we need to deal with it.
But working daughters are out there too, and nobody's talking
about them. Yeah, working daughters, right, So many of us,
I think, immediately identify like, yeah, I'm a working daughter,
but it doesn't necessarily become a huge role that we
are identifying with until our parents get a little older exactly. Liz,
(16:00):
I'm curious, can you describe a bit about the extra
burden that these working daughter's face when they're when they're
sort of juggling all these different roles and in the
workplace and with their family obligations. What does that look like?
What does it look like to be a working daughter. Well,
the typical family caregiver is a woman in her mitchell
late forties, and she's got at least one parent who's
UM sixty five or older. She's got at least one
(16:22):
kid at home eighteen or younger. She works, and UM
probably spend they say an average of twenty hours a
week on elder care too. So I mean, you know,
there's the fact that she has three jobs, if you will, right,
she has a paid job, she has the parenting job,
and then she has the elder care job and UM.
(16:44):
And the fact that this is hitting so many women
at the time it does like forties, early fifties, you know,
that's that's when we're in our final push on our
peak earning years. UM, that's when we run the risk
and if we leave work and we try to come back,
chances are really good to bad. I should say, right
that we're going to be rehired. So there's a lot
of fear and pressure to make all of those rules
(17:08):
work at once. UM. And these are women who they're
not just driving their parents to the doctors. They're they're
administering meds, They're doing lots of medical tasks. They're doing
you know, wound care and injections and changing feeding tubes,
and I mean, it's stuff for you. You kind of
like to think that the medical industry is handling this stuff,
but you've got family members who are handling this stuff. Well.
(17:31):
That was one of the things I've found so fascinating
in your article for The Atlantic called the Crisis facing
America's Working Daughters, is that when it comes to being
a parent, there's no kind of shifting of understanding of
roles when it comes to childcare responsibilities. Because when you
have a kid, you understand that you are a parent
that's going to involve, you know, giving medicine, changing diapers
and all of that. But when you're talking about being
(17:53):
a working daughter and taking care of, you know what,
an aging parent, no one really talks about what that
actually looks like. Changing diaper, is, administering medicine, giving shots,
wound care, things that can be kind of heavy and emotional.
There's no sort of corresponding emotional weight associated with doing
those things for a child. Yet here we are not
(18:13):
talking about that extra sort of layer of of heaviness
and emotions when it comes to that that very real
role reversal. Yeah, but talk about stuff mom never told you, right, Yeah, Seriously,
it's such a psychological moment when you have to recognize
that your parents, who you turn to and rely on
for support emotional and otherwise, are now not in a
(18:37):
position to support you, but beyond that, are in need
of your support and return. So you write about the
sort of added psychological stress that can come with navigating
a role transition like that. Can you tell us about
how that was presented in your life? While while you
were starting to tackle these issues in the public domain,
this became very personal for you, didn't it. Yeah, it
(18:57):
really did. I was I mean, And so what happened
is too so many caregivers. That happened to me is
what they call the caregiver creeps. So your parents start
to aige you may be the adult child who lives
near them or for whatever reason, you know, takes on
some responsibility and so you start with, you know, maybe
mowing their lawn or helping them around the house, saying
(19:17):
to the doctor, doing the grocery shopping, and so it
creeps up on you until you don't realize that you
are the caregiver. And then for me Um, both of
my parents got sick at the same time, so they
were actually both diagnosed with terminal illnesses on the same day.
I went from one hospital and heard Alzheimer's and then
to the next hospital and they said stage four O
(19:38):
variant cancer. So my my story is a little crazy.
But yeah, all of a sudden, you're in it, and
you don't know that your friends are in it. I mean,
one of the things that was really interesting to me
is I have a friend Um, who I know through parenting.
You know, we both wrote blogs, we were both in
the Listen to Your Mother's show, which gives voice and
mother's experiences. Had no idea that we also have this
(19:59):
daughter hood connection until later when we started talking about it.
You just don't know that other people are in it
with you because it's not a really fun thing to
talk about. You're talking about disease, you're talking about dying,
and these are things that you know, respectable people don't
talk about out in public. So that's a big part
of it. The other part of it is, you know,
they talk about a role reversal where you go from
(20:21):
being the daughter and it's your parents that you look
to to sort of provide all kinds of support to you,
mostly you know, emotional and just being the grown up, right,
and then all of a sudden, you're the grown up
and that's that's a big reversal that you have to navigate.
And at the same time, if you're doing it well anyway,
you're being respectful of your parents autonomy. So it's not
(20:41):
like you know a baby who you say, well, you
don't even have to say, you just show up at
Dickcare and drop them off after you you know, vet
at them. Because but because you're not gonna have a
conversation with a three months old though I'm going back
to work and you're gonna be at this place. Do
you like it? But you have to have that conversation
with the parents. They're adults and they need to have
some economy and choice. Yeah. Some thing that that struck
me in the story that you were just telling about
(21:02):
your own experiences is bonding with other people who are
in that same situation. How important would you say it's
been for you to have a community of folks going
through the same situation in terms of dealing with this.
Is that something that has kind of helped ease the
burden of this a bit or just having someone who
you know is going through that same experience. Is that
something that folks should seek out if they are struggling
(21:23):
with elder care and balancing all these roles. Yeah, I
think it's huge, um, And that's part of the reason
I started the website Working Daughter, and I care a
lot about labeling things right because if labels like working
daughter or family caregiver, they give you a vocabulary. Vocabulary
leads to dialogue. And I think it's so important that
we you know, we don't go through this alone. It's
(21:43):
um not a team sport right now the way that
we handle it, but I think it really should be.
I mean, you know, just like parenting, it takes a village, um.
But if you're not talking about it, if other people
aren't talking about you don't know where to go to
get that support and that structure that you need. I
run a pride a Facebook group and they're about five
hundred and fifty women in there, um, and it is
(22:05):
just amazing. You know, some days are busier than others,
so you don't look at the group and you come
home late at night and you see the conversations that
these women and there are men and there too are
having and the way that they validate each other's experiences,
share so generously their own experiences and advice. It's just
kind of phenomenal. And I mean, of course we need that.
(22:27):
And I think one of the things that's so valuable
in there is there are so many stigmas around UM
caregiving and the feelings that you have UM. You know,
you can be really resisting the day that you're no
longer going to have a parent, but also wondering when
you caregiving years are going to be over. You know,
so these these two thoughts can be happening at once,
(22:50):
and it can sound awful that you know, you're supposed
to be this loving daughter, you're not supposed to be
thinking when is this going to end? Because you know
what the end looks like, but it's very real and
there so there are these thoughts that we have that
maybe the general population or people who haven't been through
it might think or you know, scandalous, but we know
that's just a natural part of caregiving, and so you
have to have space to have that conversation, and it's
(23:13):
amazing to me that there are so few spaces and
communities where folks who are really primary caregivers for elders
can find that kind of camaraderie in a country where
there are forty four million estimated forty four million unpaid
elder care providers, and we know that the majority of
(23:33):
those folks are women. So how does that break down? Like,
why do you think this is especially salient for women
who we know still shoulder the majority of housework and
childcare duties. You know, what does this look like when
it comes to impacting women's earnings because the majority of
elder care seems to fall on women's shoulders as well. Well.
I think that is part of the reason it feels
(23:55):
like early days around the conversation. I mean, there are
lots of great caregiving in general resources out there. My
own experience of many of them was that they assumed
sort of a lead it to beaver um, you know,
family dynamic and lifestyle, and that we all went into
this um. You know what a gift? Isn't this wonderful?
What a blessing? And it doesn't always feel like that,
(24:16):
especially when you're working full time. You have kids and
you know you're going out of your mind. It doesn't
always feel like a blessing. Um, But there wasn't a
lot that I found of practical advice for this, this
working daughter. And I'm sure that just speaks to you, know,
how long women have been at work and how long
was in primary bread letters and all that good stuff.
But the earning impact is, you know, it's really important
(24:37):
that we think about this because you know, I mentioned
that the average caregiver is a woman in her forties,
so you really run a great risk if you leave
the workforce about re entering. You also are probably experiencing
this compound effect, you know, so you may have already
been affected at work by working fatherhood. You know, that
could mean have you've been mommy tracked or passed over
(24:58):
for plumb opportunities. You might be you know, lingering in
middle management for the rest of your days. Um, probably
making less on the dollar than your male peers. Alright,
so all the things we know women experience as the
result of being mothers in the workplace, and now all
of a sudden you're vulnerable again at a really critical
age and time in your career, and once again you
(25:18):
need flexibility once again, you need paid time off once again.
You could be passing up opportunities for plumb assignments. And
it feels really stressful that you're going to be able
to hang on to that career at a time when
it's so critical to hang onto your career and if
you don't. You know, they estimate that women lose around
three hundred thousand dollars in lifetime earnings, wages, and benefits
(25:41):
as a result of eldercare. We're going to live longer
than men, We're going to have to fund the longer retirement. So,
I mean, it's just simple math that we need to
keep women at work exactly exactly. I mean, I couldn't
agree more. Um So, you mentioned that the average caregiver
is a woman in her forties, but you also mentioned
that you actually have men in your Facebook group to
deal with elder care solutions. I'm wondering, like, we know
(26:02):
that men also help out with Asian parents. What does
it look like for men and how is it different
than what it looks like for women? A lot of times? Yeah,
I mean the statistics, the average statistic I see is
that caregivers are a men. I've seen as low as twenty,
but I think it's safe to assume around forty because
it's rapidly growing. There are ten thousand people turning sixty
(26:23):
five every day, so um, you know we need all
hands on deck in coming years. So if if men
aren't caregivers now, you know, really good chance that they
will be soon. Um. I think the challenge. I think
the conversation is very similar to what you see with parents,
right with the working mothers and working fathers were seeing
(26:44):
more conversations in recent years about fatherhood and millennial men
wanted to be more hands on and have that flexibility.
So I think, you know, similar challenges around elder care
for the women. Those challenges are the compound effect that
I just talked about. You know, your squeeze the beginning
of your career, you're squeezed again later Potentially you're in
those vulnerable positions. Um, you know, you may be making
(27:06):
less on the dollar, you may be needing to stay more, etcetera, etcetera.
I think the good thing for women and it's the
same for working mothers as we have the conversations and
we have the vocabulary and the space to be flexible
and to talk about the impact for men sort of
the same thing. I think they may not have the
other um crunches on their career as a result of
(27:29):
being men in the workplace, but they may also not
have the same sort of safety and UM's the word.
I'm looking for permission right to talk about the stresses
of balancing work and family. So there's that for them. Yeah.
I also wonder if the workplace perception is different. You know,
we talked in an episode called The Mommy Tax about
(27:49):
how women leaving the office to go take care of
children are seen as less committed, are assumed to be
less engaged in the office, even though mothers working mothers
are shown to be some of the most efficient workers
in the entire workforce, whereas working fathers who leave for
the baseball game are seen as like charming, sweet, caring people.
(28:11):
And I would just wonder, you know they're there. It
does seem like this has more silence and shame around it,
because no one's bragging about going to pick up your mom,
you know, at the home to take her for a stroll.
Like it feels like a very hush hush uh workplace conversation.
And I just wonder if men feel that same kind
of penalty that women do. UM. Clearly there needs to
(28:34):
be more research to really get to the bottom of that.
But I don't know, do you feel like men in
the office might be perceived differently for leaving to go
care for an elder than women? Are you? Personally? I
haven't encountered a ton of men who in the workplace
who we're dealing with this, um, But certainly you know
you you all in and this is anecdotal, this is
(28:55):
not research base but right, I mean, it's the same
thing that you were saying. There's always the what a
great guy add a boy for the men who step
up to do family work right versus the woman who
was just expected to do it and makes us crazy. Right. UM.
I was at a panel discussion about a year ago
here in the Boston area. UM. Maybe ten people on
(29:16):
the panel talk doctors from some of the great hospitals here,
or top insurance company executives, top senior living executives. I
heard the word daughter seven times. I never heard the
words son. So I think that's the other thing. Even
if we are looking at a six split among family caregivers,
the expectation is still that we will be those good
(29:36):
douting daughters and that it's going to be the woman.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back,
we want to dive into what companies and what the
United States can do to make this stress, to make
this pressure for working daughters a little less stressful. We'll
be right back after a quick word from our sponsors.
(30:05):
We are back with speaker, author and working daughter Liz O'Donnell,
talking all about the double pressure that women with aging
parents and and who are primary caretakers for those aging
parents face, especially in those key income earning years in
our forties when we might also have children still under
(30:25):
our roofs who need our care as well. So as
we've talked a lot about what this problem looks like
and how they can impact men and women, But I'm
curious sort of what's being done or maybe what's not
being done to kind of address this. Yeah, I mean
I would say not enough. Not enough is being done. Um,
I would say I'm encouraged by the conversation. We are
(30:46):
hearing more about elder care UM in the workplace, and
elder care is an issue. So that's good news, that's progress. Um.
Sometimes it's still just a clause in a sentence. You know,
American workers need you know, maternity leaving, maternity lead and
paid leaves. You know, they're squeezed by take care of
children comma and their aging parents comma. And that's all
(31:07):
we're getting. But it's more than nothing, right, um, And
so what I really think, you know, we need to
label this issue. We need to have a national dialogue
around it, and from the work perspective, really make sure
that we're not just talking about the challenges employees who
are parents, but we're talking about employees with parents. I mean,
if you look at the I think the number of
working mothers in the United States is what twenty three
(31:31):
or twenty five million is the estimate. The number of
working daughters is around twenty one million the estimate. So
you know, why aren't we solving for folks? So not
just talking about apparently talking about family leave, not just
talking about affordable childcare, but talk talking about affordable elder care.
You know, not just talking about um mothers ramping back
(31:51):
into the workplace, but what are the re entry programs
for a woman who leaves at four year fifties? So
that's that I think from a workplace is what needs
to happen. Well, that's exactly why I found it so surprising.
One of the things that you point out in your
Atlantic piece is that the mayor of New York, Build
de Blasio, signed an order giving city employees six weeks
of fully paid leave, which is great, right, like pay
kudos for him, But that leave only applies to the
(32:13):
birth of a child or the adoption of a child,
not for taking care of a six family member. So
it seems like this is just being left out of
the equation that we're talking about family leave and family care,
which is awesome, but elder care and caring for a
parent is just being left out of that equation and
just sort of as being raised. Yeah, it's been made invisible,
and it seems like such an opportunity for the Democratic Party.
(32:36):
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that this isn't more of a
issue that's been taken up by progressive voices who want
to stand up for working class people, because this is
clearly an economic barrier. You know, we know that medical
expenses are the number one reason for bankruptcy, and if
(32:56):
we want to look holistically at what the challenges are
that faced the amor, can working people you know, we
need some leadership at least from some wing of some
party to really make elder care an issue, because we're
not going to have an option very soon, are we.
The aging baby boomer generation is I think the great
(33:16):
anxiety of the millennial generation. So totally yeah, how long
can we avoid the inevitable? You know, it's got so depressed.
You know, before the presidential election started, I was really
hopeful that it would be a key issue because you know,
Obama Ronne like motherhood and working mother. It felt like
(33:37):
that was every other word out of their mouth, and
I was like, okay, so going into you know, we
can hopefully have the candidates talking about elder care. What
a great opportunity to shine a light. But then, of course,
you know that election, Yeah, we're like all grumbling and
mumbling under our breaths with you. Totally different than anyone expected.
(33:58):
So there was no opportunity, much a missed opportunity for
a lot of things. But I would really disappointed around that.
And then you know, we're spending so much time I think,
just you know, defending and worrying about what's going to
happen to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That we're not
spending enough time UM focused on what progress we can make.
But still that doesn't mean that legislators at the you know, regional,
(34:20):
local level shouldn't be doing more. I think it's a
huge opportunity for someone to step forward and be a
leader around That's exactly what I was just gonna say that,
you know, even though it seems like at the federal
level or the national level, perhaps we're not getting the
traction that we had hoped on this issue, there's always, always,
always opportunities at the local and hyperlocal level and state level,
and so even if it seems like nationally the dialogue
(34:41):
is not happening, I think that you can really push
your local lawmakers and local representatives to start making this
an issue, particularly since it seems like a lot of
their constituents are probably dealing with it. Yeah, and I
think that's you know, the big obstacle there. And for
whatever reason, as you said, this debate an invisible issue,
and it's it's sort of like an invisible um demographic, right,
(35:04):
So the more we can raise awareness that this exists,
the more we can talk about supporting families and thinking
about the families who you know, extend multigeneration who are
carrying up, not just down, only going to help. Yeah,
And what's interesting to me is that if you look
at the migration of older Americans, there's been a big
(35:25):
exodus last I checked. Last I looked into this of
older Americans moving to states with low property taxes. Right.
I think Florida has always been a bashed in for
the elderly, but so is the Southwest right now, most
of whom are led by Republicans. So I just I
find it interesting that this is an issue that is
wide open for either party to take up and to
(35:47):
make solutions possible. On I was impressed and intrigued by
the fact that paid maternity leave, not parental leave, made
it to the Republican platform this past election cycle. Maybe
in name only, but um, but it really does seem
like these older folks are also the most reliable voters
(36:08):
in the whole country. So someone if if they are, like,
if we have a politician listening who wants to pander
to a reliable demographic, like, figure out how we can
take care of aging Americans, because it seems like an
issue that's just ready to be made mainstream, whether we
like it or not. We're gonna have to find ways
to talk about this. Yeah, excellent point. I mean, and
(36:30):
what's it's hard is, you know, we're going to need
the caregivers themselves, right to um, to band together to
advocate as a group. And I mean they're already carrying
such a huge burden. I mean, they truly are dealing
with labor death situations every day. But um, it's the
the recently former caregivers like me, hopefully who can make
(36:51):
a difference for the ones who are still coming through.
I have one more question for you, Liz, how about
paid caregivers. You know, I I'm the daughter of a nurse,
so I'm always thinking about how underpaid caregiving work is
in the labor market too. You've written that that this
issue of being a working daughter is not something you
(37:12):
can really and truly outsource. It's not something that you
can finance your way out of, and so it's an
issue that doesn't just impact certain classes of Americans, really
impacts all of us. Can you unpack that for us
and sort of explain what you mean by that? Yeah, Well,
part of the reason that it is hard, even if
you know you've got all the privilege in the world
to throw money as this problem is because you are
(37:33):
dealing with an adults and who does have autonomy and
say so, um, it's not just the caregiver who has
to be on board, right, it's the parents that you're
caring borrow has to be on board with whatever solution
that you want to provide for them. But the other
problem that you started, um, the question with I'm so
glad you brought up is the state of paid caregiving.
(37:53):
And you know, the National Domestic Workers Alliance is doing
such great and important work around this. Paid caregivers, you know,
are are often excluded from more place protections, um like
minimum wage and paid time off and um. Some states
have enacted a domestic Workers Bill of Rights, but we
need all states to do that because you know, it's
sort of like the dialogue around teachers and childcare. These
(38:17):
are the people who are doing such important work. They're
taking care of our families, They're taking care of people
as their most vulnerable moments, and we're paying them nothing
and they're working several jobs and they go home and
have to care for their own families. So right there,
I mean, I think that's the one of the most
important things that we can lean on our legislators to
(38:40):
look at. So where can folks find out more about
the work that you're doing and more resources on this subject. Uh.
Working daughter dot com is my website and online community
for other working daughters and sons. Are welcome to. UM
that's the best place. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Liz.
It has been truly a pleasure thing to know you
(39:00):
these a few years and watching you focus in on
this subject that needs so much more attention. So thank
you for being a pioneer and for sharing some of
what stuff Mom never told us with us today. Well,
thank you both. I appreciate it. So this is actually
a topic that is very very close to my heart. UM.
(39:21):
I think I've mentioned on the show on and off
a couple of times that my dad has a chronic illness. UM.
If you know me, you know that my dad is
basically my hero. Anything good about me and my life
who I am basically comes from him. And so we're
very very close, and probably not a day goes by
that I don't think about what his life is going
to look like down the line, and what it's going
(39:43):
to look like for our family down the line. I
think when you're young, it's not something that you think about,
Like when I was in my twenties, I never thought
about what my dad's end of life situation would look like.
And he's not anywhere near that. I don't think he's
if you met him, he's the most energetic, spry, life
living as person you've ever met. So don't don't get
the wrong idea. But once I think a family member
(40:04):
becomes chronically ill, it like hits you, right, It hits
you how short life is, and that as a child,
you will probably have to have some role in this.
And that was something that had never occurred to me
when I was in high school in my twenties. It
wasn't until I found out that my dad was sick
that this was even the thing on my radar. Did
it impact like your life directly? Do you feel like
(40:24):
it's impact of the way you make choices? Yes, I
never want to be too far away from where my
parents live because if something happens and I want to
go back right away, I want to be able to
get there. And I mean, I'm not even someone who
visits as much as I should, but I just like knowing,
you know, hey, if something happened, it wouldn't be a
complicated cross country flight. I could happen a car, get
on a train, and be home. I think I made
(40:46):
a lot of choices based around that. And I think
if my family knew what an emotional wait this was
for me and how it impacts a lot of my
thinking and choice making and all of that, they would
be just pointed. They would not want me to be
living my life this way. But it's hard, and I
think for me, as someone who has only been sort
(41:07):
of getting to know what this feels like pretty recently
in life, I think it's a bit of a balancing
act of like how you make heads or tails of
this new thing that frankly you never thought you were
gonna be dealing with and your pre caretaking, right, this
is not like you're taking an active roles, But do
you know that it's coming. I know that it's coming,
(41:27):
and I know that you know. I know that with
as close as I am to my dad, I know
that will never be in a situation where like someone
else is doing caretaking like it's me, right, Like, so
are you saying that you want to take up the
mantle correct and you don't want to find yourself in
a position of delegating their responsibility or paying for for
(41:49):
professional caretakers. And I have to ask you, do you
think that's has anything to do with an identity as
being a woman, Like are you more likely to take
on that man tool and like kind of want to
martyr yourself for this or is it is it a
conscious choice? Like without what? I think it's both. I
think one is just that my dad and I have
a really close relationship, and so you know, and I
(42:11):
also I know my dad right, Like, my dad would
never want to have a stranger in his home doing
things for him. My dad wants to do things on
his own, and if someone has to do things for him,
it's not going to be a stranger in our house
because my dad's does not like that. And so one
is just from having a close relationship with my parents. Two,
I do think it's gendered. I mean, all the research
suggests that women do end up doing most of this
(42:33):
kind of work. And I think that as the only
daughter in my family, I think that there is an
expectation that as the as the girl that will fall
on me. I do wonder if it's also cultural because
the idea of delegating family obligation to outsiders seems very foreign,
particularly in my family. My family is in my black
(42:53):
family that we're talking about. This is stuff your black
mom never told you. Perfect, So I wonder, like I mean,
on all the research, there was very little, shockingly little
on elder care as it comes to race in the
United States, other than the racial makeup of professional caregivers,
(43:14):
which is very non white, And so I wonder if
how that impacts only decision making. I would love to
see search around that, just anecdotally, again, I have not
seen this research, but anecdotally, I would think that caregiving,
hiring outside caregiving is something that communities of color perhaps
are not doing at rates that are as high as
(43:35):
their white counterparts. That would be my assumption. And I think,
if I recall correctly, Latino families are much more likely
to have multiple generations living under the same room exactly,
which I think is becoming much more of a thing
um And it is probably where I see myself in
the future in terms of elder care. But I don't know.
(43:56):
I'm dying to hear from our listeners on this right
because it is such a private conversation that's fraught even
within every family. So it's like there's very few places
other than perhaps Liz's Facebook group, where people are having
these conversations amongst caregivers, amongst decision makers who are navigating
(44:17):
these choice moments within each of their own families. And
it feels to me like we need to be talking
a lot more about this to bring the conversation out
of the shadows, to get some public policy support on
an issue that barely has a name. So, working daughters,
we want to hear from you. Do you identify as
a working daughter? Do you feel the squeeze that Liz
was talking about, perhaps a lot more than Bridget and
(44:39):
I do right now, right as being unwed, unmarried, childless women,
which we'll talk more about in this series. But you know,
what does it feel like to play those different roles
of mother of daughter to an aging parent and of
course in your professional life, how does that show up? Yeah,
(44:59):
I'm really curious how other folks are navigating this. Are
you someone like me who is just now starting to
think about these things and how they'll show up in
your life? Is a partner or someone else that you
know going through this. I'm just really curious how this
issue is showing up in people's lives, so make sure
to hit us up on Instagram at stuff Mom Never
Told You, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and as always,
we love getting your emails at mom stuff at how
(45:22):
stuff works dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Samantha McVey
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