The Sunday Read: ‘The Agony of Putting Your Life on Hold to Care for Your Parents’
The Daily30 Apr 2023

The Sunday Read: ‘The Agony of Putting Your Life on Hold to Care for Your Parents’

In January 2022, Randi Schofield was a 34-year-old single mother who, not long before, left her full-time job of eight years as a personal bailiff to a local judge. She pulled $30,000 from her retirement savings and was planning to give herself all of 2022 to expand the small catering business she had always dreamed about. This would be the year she bet on herself. Then, that month, she received the news that medics were pulling her father out of his car.

The collision splintered the bone in his left thigh down to his knee; three days later, a metal rod held the broken pieces together. Until his leg recovered from the surgery, he would not be able to walk without assistance. In hindsight, there were warning signs that her father’s health could upend Schofield’s life. But he was also youthful and spirited, and it was easy to believe that everything was fine, that he was fine and that if she were to take care of him some day, it would be occasional and in a distant future. She didn’t see this day coming the way it did, so abruptly and so soon.

Increasing numbers of adult children are taking care of their parents, often shouldering the burden with no pay and little outside help — making their meals, helping them shower, bandaging their wounds and holding them up before they can fall. The social-work scholar Dorothy A. Miller once described this as the “peculiar position” in the modern American nuclear family, between the care people give to their aging parents and to their children. Today’s “sandwich generation” is younger than the version Miller described four decades ago, but it faces the same “unique set of unshared stresses” that she warned of then: acute financial strain, a lack of reciprocated support and “fatigue from fulfilling the demands of too many roles.”

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Episoder(2697)

Thursday, Aug 31, 2017

Thursday, Aug 31, 2017

“The problem starts for Houston almost the moment that it’s founded.” That’s how Richard Fausset, who covers the South for The New York Times, describes the founding of Houston, which was built on the edge of a swampy bayou. On today’s show, he describes the uniquely American success story of Houston as a boomtown, and how Harvey’s destruction recasts the narrative. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

31 Aug 201719min

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2017

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2017

As a poor, white teenager in Fort Smith, Ark., Abraham Davis never fit in. As a hidden minority there, the town’s Muslims were trying to make a home. Then their lives collided. Plus: the latest from Houston, where the rain keeps falling. Guests: Sabrina Tavernise, a national correspondent for The New York Times; Jacqueline Herrera, a Houston resident who we check back in with. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

30 Aug 201731min

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2017

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2017

By Monday, the third straight day of flooding, Hurricane Harvey had left much of the region underwater, and the city of Houston looked like a sea dotted by islands. We hear from some people in the city about the view from the ground as the waters keep rising. Guests: Alan Blinder, a Times correspondent who has been reporting from Houston; Jacqueline Herrera, who talks to us us from her home in Houston where she is, for now, staying put. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

29 Aug 201720min

Monday, Aug 28, 2017

Monday, Aug 28, 2017

President Trump’s first pardon went to a wildly divisive sheriff from Arizona. So who is Joe Arpaio? And how do presidential pardons work? Guests: Fernanda Santos, the former Phoenix bureau chief of The New York Times; Adam Liptak, our Supreme Court reporter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

28 Aug 201732min

Friday, Aug. 25,  2017

Friday, Aug. 25, 2017

The feud between President Trump and Jeff Flake, a Republican senator from Arizona, reveals a great deal about tensions in Washington. Guests: Jonathan Martin, a national political correspondent for The Times; Mr. Flake, who you can hear more from in tomorrow’s episode of “The New Washington.” For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

25 Aug 201720min

Thursday, Aug. 24,  2017

Thursday, Aug. 24, 2017

The United States recently noticed something unusual in North Korea’s weapons program: Its missiles started to work. Why? We discuss a surprising discovery. Guest: William J. Broad, who has reported on missile defense for decades. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

24 Aug 201717min

Wednesday, Aug. 23,  2017

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017

The president says “things are going to be different” in Afghanistan: no more “nation-building,” just killing terrorists. But a closer examination suggests this new strategy looks a lot like the strategy of the last 16 years. Guest: Matt Rosenberg, who covered Afghanistan from 2008 to 2014. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

23 Aug 201720min

Tuesday, Aug. 22,  2017

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017

Derek Black left the white nationalist movement that he had been poised to help lead, betraying his father, a former grand master of the Ku Klux Klan. Today, we talk with him about the events of the past year. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

22 Aug 201734min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
forklart
popradet
stopp-verden
det-store-bildet
dine-penger-pengeradet
nokon-ma-ga
fotballpodden-2
aftenbla-bla
rss-dannet-uten-piano
e24-podden
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-gukild-johaug
rss-ness
bt-dokumentar-2
kommentarer-fra-aftenposten
unitedno
ukrainapodden