The Atlantic

Gen-X Women Are Caught in a Generational Tug-of-War

The average caregiver is a 49-year-old woman, and the demands of caregiving seem likely to increase.
Source: Owen Franken / Getty

Updated at 5:57 p.m. ET on January 14, 2020.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I stood with my 13-year-old son in a long line stretching over the West Side Highway, cars careening below us. He was waiting to take an entrance exam for a specialized high school, a sacred moment, and yet I kept glancing at my phone to check the time. I had to meet my mother to tour an apartment because my childhood home in the East Village had burned down the week prior—a month after my father was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. My parents, who are in their 70s, were too overwhelmed to handle the logistics of finding a sublet on their

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