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

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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 lifelines. They are less likely to have friends going through similar experiences, and depend more on their jobs for daily human contact," said 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.
    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 the employee-assistance program.
B、Because he was threatened to be at the risk of losing his job.
C、Because he felt embarrassed to take care of his parents.
D、Because he feared it would do harm to his image in his boss’ mind.

答案D

解析 细节推断题。由定位句可知,Matt Kassin认为公司雇用他肯定希望他能专心工作,他不希望让别人觉得自己有分心的事情,从而影响他在工作上的表现,因此答案为D)。A)“因为公司没有提供员工援助项目”,定位句提到Matt Kassin所在的公司福利很好,但是没有具体说明这家公司是否对员工提供这种项目,故排除;B)“因为他受到威胁,可能要失去工作”,定位句提到他的老板非常通情达理,因此此选项与文意不符,故排除;C)“因为他要照顾父母,感到很不好意思”,文章没有提及,故排除。
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