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 do male caregivers tend to feel more stressed and socially isolated according to Donna Wagner?

选项 A、Because they feel overwhelmed by the pressure from their parents.
B、Because they are in the face of competition from their female counterparts.
C、Because they find few people to talk and share their experiences with.
D、Because they are psychologically unprepared for the role.

答案C

解析 细节推断题。定位句指出男性很少有与他们拥有相同经历的朋友,人际交往也只限于工作场所。由此可以推断,他们有与外界隔绝的感觉主要是因为他们几乎找不到可以和他们交流、分享经历的人,因此答案为C)。A)“因为他们感觉父母给的压力太大,他们无法承受”、B)“因为他们面临着女性护理人员的竞争”和D)“因为他们在心理上没有为这一角色做好准备”都不是Donna Wagner的观点,故排除。
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