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  3. The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that men make up nearly 40 percent of family care

The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that men make up nearly 40 percent of family care

admin2017-04-29  61
问题     The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that men make up nearly 40 percent of family care providers now, up from 19 percent in a 1996 study by the Alzheimer’s Association. About 17 million men are caring for an adult. Women still provide the bulk of family care, especially intimate tasks like bathing and dressing. Many complain that their brothers are treated like heroes just for showing up. But with smaller families and more women working full-time, many men have no choice but to take on roles that would have been alien to their fathers.
    Often they are overshadowed by their female counterparts and faced with employers, friends, support organizations and sometimes even parents who view caregiving as an essentially female role. Male caregivers are more likely to say they feel unprepared for the role and become socially isolated, and less likely to ask for help. "Isolation affects women as well, but men tend to have fewer lifeline. They are less likely to have friends going through similar experiences, and depend more on their jobs for daily human contact," Dr. Donna Wagner, the director of gerontology(老年学)at Towson University and one of the few researchers who has studied sons as caregivers, said.
    In past generations, men might have pointed to their accomplishments as breadwinners or fathers. Now, some men say they worry about the conflict between caring for their parents and these other roles. In a 2003 study at three Fortune 500 companies, Dr. Donna Wagner found that men were less likely to use employee-assistance programs for caregivers because they feared it would be held against them. "Even though the company has endorsed the program, your supervisors may have a different opinion," Dr. Wagner said. Matt Kassin, 51, worked for a large company with very generous benefits, and his employer had been understanding. But he was reluctant to talk about his caregiving because he thought "when they hire a male, they expect him to be 100 percent focused." And he didn’t want to appear to be someone who had distractions that detracted(破坏)from performance.
    For many men, the new role means giving up their self-image as experts, said Louis Colbert, director of the office of services for the aging in Delaware County, Pa., who has shared care of his 84-year-old mother with his siblings since her Alzheimer’s made it necessary. Once a year, Mr. Colbert organizes a get-together for male caregivers. The concerns they raise, he said, are different from those of women in support groups. "Very clearly, they said they wanted their role as caregivers validated, because in our society, as a whole, men as caregivers have been invisible," he said.
Why was Matt Kassin unwilling to talk about his caregiving with his employer?
选项 A、Because the company did not provide support programs.
B、Because he was threatened with losing his job.
C、Because he felt embarrassed to send his parents to nursing homes.
D、Because he feared it would distract from his performance in work.
答案D
解析
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