Paid to Care: When Class, Power, and Caregiving Collide

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Podcasts

Business, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Careers, Relationships, Sexuality

4.6 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Delores moved to New York City from Jamaica nearly thirty years ago she didn’t know anyone. But soon she found a community of other nannies and learned how to navigate job interviews and “fussy” parents who don’t like nannies to tell their children no. In this week’s episode on paid caretaking, we explore the class and power dynamics inherent in care work. Plus, we hear from Faye*, a woman living with debilitating multiple sclerosis, and her husband Murray*, about how hiring outside help for caregiving shifts became essential to supporting their marriage. Are you taking care of a loved one with MS? Murray suggests starting here for resources. *Names have been changed. Read Koa Beck’s essay about becoming a foster parent: “Nanny of the State.” Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus. And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week, we are sharing our second episode about paid caregiving work.
0:05.4	We heard from so many of you over the past few months about the intimate grinding work that you do,
0:11.6	what you love about caregiving work, and what it can take from you to get it done.
0:17.8	Now, it is so great when a new listener voice memo hits our inbox.
0:22.5	We get this peek into your life, what you're dealing with, and how you're getting through it.
0:28.9	And before we dive in today, I wanted to share some voice memos with you that we've been getting about another topic, estrangement. We re-released an episode from our
0:40.2	estrangement series back around Thanksgiving, and since then, we've been receiving a lot of
0:46.3	stories that we don't want to wait to share with you. This week, in a special drop for Slate Plus
0:53.0	members, we're sharing a sort of mailbag of what we've been hearing.
0:57.7	I'm crying in my car in the parking lot because I was listening to the episode at my work station and I needed to leave the premises.
1:11.3	So situation is that when I was seven and my sister was eight, we went to go live with our aunt and uncle.
1:22.4	And in years later, was a subject of great controversy and disagreement between my mother and my aunt as to
1:33.1	whether we were rescued or we were kidnapped. And in more recent years, I've come down much more
1:42.5	heavily on the side of us being kidnapped.
1:47.0	And so just in the last five years or so, I've chosen to become estranged from my aunt who raised me.
1:56.4	And I don't think anyone's happy that we're talking to each other, but we're the kids in this situation. And I don't think there's happy that we're talking to each other, but like, we're the kids in this situation? And I don't think there's any reason why their beef has to affect us.
2:07.0	I wanted to believe my mother was crazy, and the reason for her craziness was bereavement.
2:13.4	Crazy is a lot more palatable than your mom being the kind of person who uses the death of
2:18.8	her son as an opportunity for her own self-aggrandizement. You can hear more about these stories
2:27.3	by joining Slate Plus if you haven't already. You can sign up for Slate Plus by clicking
2:32.4	try free at the top of the Death, Sex Sex and Money show page on Apple Podcasts.
2:37.3	Or if you listen on Spotify, just click Get Access or go to slate.com slash DSM Plus to get access wherever you listen.
	...

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