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cover of episode Consumed by Caregiving

Consumed by Caregiving

2024/11/25
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Women at Work
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People
J
Jessica Calarco
M
Marti Bledsoe
播
播音员
主持著名true crime播客《Crime Junkie》的播音员和创始人。
Topics
Marti Bledsoe讲述了她因家庭成员持续生病、搬家等原因导致一年多无法工作的经历，这突显了女性在兼顾家庭责任和职场发展时面临的巨大挑战。她详细描述了在这一年里她所承担的繁重家务、照顾家人和处理各种琐碎事务的经历，以及这些经历给她带来的身心俱疲和对人生的质疑。她还反思了工作与生活的平衡问题，认为即使平衡了工作、家庭和个人生活，如果自己承担了所有责任，也会感到压力巨大。她认为，如果当时继续全职工作，她需要寻找兼顾工作和家庭责任的方式，例如兼职、短期残疾休假或灵活的工作安排，但她仍然可能因为家庭责任而失去工作。 Jessica Calarco从社会学角度分析了女性成为美国社会安全网的现象。她指出，美国社会普遍认为个人和家庭应该依靠自身能力解决照护问题，这导致女性承担了过多的无偿照护责任。她认为，社会通过培养女性的照护角色和剥夺她们的支持，促使她们成为家庭的默认照护者。她还指出，这种机制导致了道德困境，即女性的成功往往是以剥削他人为代价的。她呼吁女性集体行动，争取更好的政策和支持，而非仅仅依靠个人努力。她认为，政府应该对照护服务进行投资，以确保这些服务的质量和可持续性，并制定普遍性的政策来解决照护问题，例如普遍负担得起的托儿服务、长期护理保险等，以减轻雇主的负担和个人的压力。 Amy Bernstein作为播音员，总结了Marti Bledsoe和Jessica Calarco的观点，并表达了对Marti Bledsoe的同情和对女性困境的关注。她指出，许多女性都在努力平衡工作和家庭责任，承担了过多的无偿工作，这在社会上常常被忽视。她认为，解决问题的关键在于构建一个更公平的社会，而非仅仅依靠个人努力。她还分享了一个朋友的故事，她拒绝遵循社会期望，选择以一种非传统的方式生活，这体现了对社会期望的挑战。

Deep Dive

Chapters
Marti Bledsoe recounts a year filled with relentless caregiving responsibilities, including moving twice, family health crises, and managing her children's mental and physical health.
  • Marti resigned from her job due to burnout and planned to re-enter the workforce but was consumed by caregiving responsibilities.
  • She moved twice and dealt with multiple family health crises, including her fiancé's knee surgery and her mother's emergency surgeries.
  • Marti juggled numerous responsibilities, from coordinating home counseling to planning a wedding, leaving her exhausted and unable to focus on finding a new job.

Shownotes Transcript

Marti Bledsoe, a past guest of the show, recounts how she burned out, quit her job, intended to get a new job after taking a breather, and then wasn’t able to for over a year. That’s because someone in her family kept getting sick or hurt, she had to move twice, and all of the logistics and emotional support fell to her (because who else was going to do it?!).

These ever-expanding, relentless set of responsibilities is the norm for lots of women in the U.S., especially mothers. Sociologist Jessica Calarco joins Marti and Amy B to help make sense of Marti’s exhausting year of unpaid work and the forces that put her and other women into the position of being people’s default, unpaid caregiver.

Guest expert:

Jessica Calarco is a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin and the author of the book Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net).

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