How to be a caregiver (w/ Courtney Martin)

If you could switch places with someone and peek into their mind, who would you pick? For journalist Courtney Martin, she chose her aging dad with advanced dementia. Courtney joins Chris to talk about her deep desire to understand her father’s experiences, what it’s like to witness a loved one's health decline, and why it’s important to practice asking for help. This is a perfect episode to listen to if you’re taking care of a loved one (or know someone who is) and want practical ways to be kinder to caregivers. Featured guest Follow Courtney Martin on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/courtwrites/, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtney-martin-82415050/, Substack https://courtney.substack.com/, and at courtneyemartin.com/ https://courtneyemartin.com/ Connect with the team Follow Chris on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chrisiduffy/?hl=en and at chrisduffycomedy.com https://chrisduffycomedy.com/Buy Chris’ book, Humor Me https://t.ted.com/ZGuYfcL Watch How to Be a Better Human videos on YouTube at TEDAudioCollective https://www.youtube.com/TEDAudioCollectiveFollow TED on X https://x.com/TEDTalks, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ted, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TED, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/ted-conferences/, and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@tedtoksFor the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Chris Duffy?

  You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today's episode is all about how to be a caregiver. What do you do when you're the one making sure that the people you love get what they need? How do you support someone if they're the one that's doing the caretaking? You know, this is a role that almost all of us will have to play at one point or another in our lives, and yet it's one that so few of us have any sort of training to do. Today's guest, Courtney Martin, has been writing and thinking about care for our kids, for our parents, for our partners, for our communities, for the world, for our country. She's been thinking about all those different forms of care for years now. And she's been doing that as a writer and a journalist, but she is currently living through it in an entirely new and much more personal way.

• 0:46Chris Duffy?

  Here is a clip where Courtney explains what I'm talking about.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  I am, from a practical perspective, I'm a, you know, classic sort of sandwich generation caregiver, right? So I have two daughters, nine and 12 years old, and I live with my mom, who's in her late 70s and has some disabilities and some chronic illnesses. And I also am the primary caregiver for my dad, who is in a memory care facility. He has advanced dementia. So I'm, meaning I'm sort of the point person on all things care for my dad, like coordinating with doctors, you know, making sure he has everything he needs when he's there, visiting him frequently. So caregiving is just like a massive part of my life.

• 1:29Chris Duffy?

  I cannot tell you how often I have sent someone an email with a link to something that Courtney has written and said, "You have to read this." I'm so excited to talk to her because I think she's brilliant, but I also think that she is able to talk about care with all of its complications and nuances in a way that just about no one else can. She really brings this whole universe down to a scale where we can acknowledge what's happening and think about it and really wrestle with it. So I'm very, very excited to talk to Courtney today, and we are going to get into that conversation right after this quick break.

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• 2:52Chris Duffy?

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• 3:42Chris Duffy?

  On today's episode, we are talking about love and service and what it means to be a caregiver with Courtney Martin.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Hi, this is Courtney Martin. I'm a writer, a caregiver. I have a Substack newsletter called Examined Family, and I host a podcast called The Wise Unknown.

• 3:59Chris Duffy?

  You know, I think all of the topics that I want to discuss with you fall under the umbrella of caregiving and the different forms that that takes in our lives. So I'm curious to hear how you are currently feeling about caregiving in your own life.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Oh, what a big question. Caregiving for me is like an existential portal. It's like the most meaningful, interesting, challenging, beautiful part of the human condition possible. So I first experienced that when my kids were born and now I'm experiencing that as an adult daughter in such a profound way. So I have all kinds of like spiritual things to say about that, but also because I'm a trained journalist and I love to do solutions journalism, it's forced me to ask lots of interesting systemic questions. So I'm also now doing a lot of reporting on care and the care system in America and thinking a lot about a lot of these sort of systemic and cultural levels too. So it's

• 5:00Speaker 01

  like, it's like my whole life is care on all these different levels at this point.

• 5:05Chris Duffy?

  You described it as a portal. And to me, Elise, a portal kind of means like it's something that takes you from one place into another. What is the place that you were before? And what's the place that you've gotten to?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  I'll take my dad because I think that's one that's especially alive and fascinating, which is, first of all, my dad is like one of the loves of my life. So we'll put that out there. So, you know, lifelong incredible relationship and so many conversations about the existential meaning of life with my father. He's a Buddhist. He was just like incredibly unconditionally loving, you know, totally hyperbolic about me. If he was on the podcast, he'd be like, this is Courtney Martin, the best young writer in America. I'd be like, first of all, I'm not young anymore, Dad, and also definitely not the best at anything. But anyway, that was, you know, he, the way he saw me deeply shaped how I'm able to walk

• 5:58Speaker 01

  through the world. So about a decade ago, he got diagnosed with early onset frontal temporal dementia, which is not the lottery ticket you want to pull. It is a really shitty disease.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  So watching my dad essentially unbecome himself as my kids are becoming themselves has been sort of a wild cross current. And the portal with my dad now, because he's, you know, very advanced in his dementia, and the portal of the last few years has been sort of, how can I be with him? And what does that teach me about being human? And, you know, my dad, like I said, was a lifelong practicing Buddhist, but struggled mightily with anxiety and other things his whole life. He is now the most Buddhist he's ever been. He's the most mindful he's ever been. He's the least egoic he's ever been.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  So, you know, there were times when we were living together when he and I would just sit in our courtyard and I would read Pema Chodron to him and not know, like, how much of this is being absorbed in his brain? I have, I have no clue.

• 7:10Chris Duffy?

  I'm going to jump in for one second to just say, if you don't know, Pema Chodron is the Buddhist teacher and nun and author of the book, When Things Fall Apart.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then like, you know, I'd stop reading and be like, wow, dad, I'm thinking like, you have like very little ego left. And he'd be like, is that a good thing? And I'd be like, yeah, it's a great thing, dad. So it's like, the story of dementia is terrible. And there were lots of terrible things that happened and, and continue to happen that we could also be real about and talk about. But also the portal of it has been like, who is my dad without anxiety? Who is my dad without an ego? Who is my dad if at this point, we basically are wordless together, except for singing? Like, we sing The Beatles. I saw him on Thanksgiving. We're recording near Thanksgiving and we sang Bob Seger's Night Moves.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  And, which is just the best song. I love it so much. And, uh, Hey Jude. And my dad has no words, but he had words to sing. So it's like, okay, today, that's the form of connection. And that's his essence that's still intact. If the, one of the people you love most in the world unbecomes themselves, but is still themselves, it's a fucking weird portal. You're like, what does that mean about who I am? Or who anybody is, you know? And I think part of it has just made me think we're far less coherent than we think we are. And also made me just not want to waste time worrying about my coherence and worrying about all these things that I know my dad worried about for so, so, so many years.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  So yeah, that's kind of the nature of the portal with my dad, but I think all caregiving portals are different depending on both the nature of the care you're giving, but also the nature of the human that you're caring for.

• 8:56Chris Duffy?

  Well, something that was really interesting about going back, you know, several years in into your work and things that have touched me that you've written over over time is that so much of the work was about caregiving, was about finding ways to navigate in a society and a culture that really makes it hard to care for each other, to talk honestly about things like grief or discomfort or suffering. You know, you quite literally were a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, that the idea that we don't just shine a spotlight on the problem and say, wow, that sucks. Too bad that it's a problem and there's no way to fix it. Instead, you also give equal time to people who are working on that problem and what

• 9:39Chris Duffy?

  they are doing and what is effective and what is ineffective.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  You know, I always wanted to be a journalist because I realized like, oh, you get to read voraciously and learn all the time about stuff you care about, like just go down these, you know, tunnels of like your own passions and interests and questions about the world, like what could be a better job. But I was really attracted to solutions. I was really attracted to like the people I saw in the world and in my community who were tackling problems in really compelling ways. And when I was in my early twenties, I'm 45 now, I felt like, oh, maybe I'm not supposed to be a journalist because it seems like if you're, if you're supposed to be a journalist, you want to expose corruption and write about how shitty human beings can be, all of which

• 10:27Speaker 01

  I think is really important work. And I, you know, I'm so glad so many people want to do it. I was really interested in problems, but only insofar as I was interested in how we might tackle them, not insofar as I wanted to like find the bad guy and, and, you know, do an expose on them. I also realized One of the best ways to get the bad guy is to show how good things could be. Because if we only show how bad that leadership is, or whatever, how corrupt, and we don't say, like, look at this other leader who's doing it this way, or look at this other organization, or look at this state that has figured out this thing, then that's actually holding power accountable because you show that it is possible. So thankfully, I met this incredible mentor and friend of mine, David Bernstein, early in my twenties, when I was having that crisis of conscience

• 11:12Speaker 01

  and being like, maybe I'm not supposed to be a journalist because I want to write about solutions. He was like, no, you're exactly who needs to be a journalist because we need people to write about solutions. And that led to us creating this solutions journalism network together, which has been just like a great thing. And he's just been an incredible leader of that organization. But I also, really, that's the only way I know to like be okay in the world. It's, you know, like this experience I've had with my dad has been so painful that when I had a moment this last summer to be like, okay, how do I like keep moving through this grief, as you mentioned, and through just like the absolute rage I feel at how elders are treated in our culture and in our society? It was like, oh, I gotta like channel some energy into some journalism.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  So now I'm doing some stories on various solutions that I see within elder care as potentially really important and provocative. And that just, it's so cathartic for me. And it's just like, I have a personal experience. I get outraged and I, you know, am in some sort of suffering around it. And then I start asking like big systemic questions, usually about like economic privilege, racial privilege, gender privilege, and try to like figure out who is working on these things and how can I shine a light on them?

• 12:28Chris Duffy?

  And just to give an example of what this actually looks like in one of your articles, you wrote this fantastic article in 2024 about, called Fine Print Justice, about Daryl Atkinson and, you know, how he was battling fines and fees that were causing all these huge problems for people who were Unjustly affected by them and in ways that were very, it was unequal who was having to pay these fines and fees and how much it was disrupting their lives. However, when you write the article, and I'm just going to read literally the paragraph, the playbook is basically this. Talk to those most directly impacted by fines and fees who can pinpoint which ones are giving them the most trouble. Follow the money, namely, what is the collection rate and what does it cost the government to get that money? Paint a picture of why

• 13:11Chris Duffy?

  fines and fees are a lose-lose so that both government insiders and sympathetic outsiders like public interest lawyers, community organizers, nonprofit leaders working on immigration or incarceration, et cetera, understand. Finally, in coalition, push hard for reform. And once you get it at the local level, aim for state reform. You've just so quickly and efficiently boiled down a way that things could change. And that, I think, is, you know, when you are doing your reporting about other things outside of yourself, I feel like that is the hallmark of a Courtney Martin story is that it has a paragraph like that, which to me is so, I just find so refreshing and empowering

• 13:52Chris Duffy?

  as a reader and as a person who cares about the issues and is made to care by the writer. I feel like you are always able to pull back the personal suffering and the personal tragedy and find the coalition of broader forces that are involved, but also could make a compassionate version of this for other people who are in similar situations. I just feel like that is, again, something that's so unique about your work.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you for reflecting that back for me. That is really cool to hear you word it that way. I think that is probably partly shaped by my mom and her, the way I sort of grew up watching her collectivize things. I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which in the 80s was a very conservative place politically and religiously. And my parents are, you know, old hippies. They grew up in Denver, but they, my dad got a job at a law firm in Colorado Springs. So, you know, we were getting like- Bibles delivered in our newspaper and I had a very formative experience as a teenager where Focus on the Family tried to like shut our school newspaper down because we

• 15:05Speaker 01

  reported on what it was like to be queer at our high school and just like very formative things that were like, whoa. And my mom, instead of being like, you know, we're gonna make the most perfect progressive family possible with, you know, the right yard signs and the right things was like, with one of her friends who knew nothing about film, decided we're gonna start a film festival in this town because film is like one of the ways you diversify how people understand humanity and stories and, you know, political dynamics and all these kinds of things. So they started this film festival that's called the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival, now the longest running women's film festival in the world. So I think

• 15:44Speaker 01

  I watched her collectivize and always look for like what, who is the coalition, as you put it, like, what is the broader community of people that I can go to with this thing that ails me? And so I think probably a lot of that comes from her modeling and I'm very proud to have carried it on in a way that she would have never imagined, which of course is also part of the, the beauty of care and legacy is, you know, we're parenting these kids who are gonna do all kinds of weird shit with our, our ways of moving through the world that we never would have predicted.

• 16:19Chris Duffy?

  Okay, we are gonna take a quick break, but we will be back with more from Courtney right after this.

• 16:32Chris Duffy?

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• 17:14Chris Duffy?

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• 18:23Chris Duffy?

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• 19:25Chris Duffy?

  And we are back. Today, we're talking about caregiving with Courtney Martin. I had a very acute experience of caregiving when my wife was very incapacitated, sick and dealing with injuries. And it was kind of medically mysterious, but she was in a lot of pain, both physical and mental. And we had these multi-year

• 19:48Chris Duffy?

  Year period of like things just being really bad and me being the caretaker and it and that was my first experience of this acute caretaking was like this person and it is my responsibility to get them to survive.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Was this before you guys had kids?

• 20:05Chris Duffy?

  Before we had kids. Yeah.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:08Chris Duffy?

  And I had this experience where I felt like my like the top layer of skin had been removed from my body and I was just feeling everything so intensely and it was like painful, but it was also like intense and not always in a painful way to the point where I just felt like I could cry at any second. Feelings were there. Emotions were so like, it's so good, but it's also so hard and so bad. And the relief when it was a good day was such an incredible relief, but the the bad day was so there too. So I just associated that feeling with her and with illness

• 20:46Chris Duffy?

  and with caretaking for illness. And now having two kids with with both of them, I had a version of that feeling of that my shell is gone, that my skin is raw and I am exposed to the world. And I actually found that it was kind of like shocking to me to think that that same feeling could not be pinned on an intensely negative experience, that it could actually be pinned on an intensely positive experience of there's this new baby and it's incredible and he's here and our lives are different and I am responsible for this person. And I felt like it was so much

• 21:26Chris Duffy?

  of the same emotions and yet in a wildly different narrative. It really expanded how I understood like the capacity of myself to experience those kinds of things.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Brene Brown has this idea of foreboding joy and she talks about like staring at your kid in their crib and you're just like, I love them so much. And then you're like, oh, fuck. I love them so much. Oh, fuck. You know, she doesn't say it that way, but that's how I think about it. It's just like, it's so terrifying to love humans this much. It's just absolutely insane. And I was also Also thinking about the Celtic idea of thin time and thin place. Just the idea that there are like moments in life and you know, this is very obvious during like birth and funerals and you know, the sort of end of life and beginning of life. But when we feel how you know, viscerally and probably just quite accurately,

• 22:19Speaker 01

  how little stands between us and death, how little stands between us and things changing forever. And I do love that place. And that's kind of when I hear you talking about the caretaking during illness, which you know, I do not take lightly because I, both my mom and my brother have chronic illnesses and my mom's has been quite mysterious. So I really get how incredibly hard it is to care take for someone with illness. But I do think there's something just really, I guess it just feels like congruent and in integrity and right to me to be like in that thin time or thin place. Cause it's like, this is really how the world is.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  You know, we spend so much time just on automatic pilot, like focusing on little ego shit that in the end is not going to matter at all. You know, I am guilty of this constantly. And then there'll be these moments, you know, when I'm sitting with my dad or you know, when I'm curled up with one of my kids. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is like going so fast. And you know, before, you know, my kid just turned 12, so I'm really feeling this like she's wears the same same size shoe I do. Which is just crazy. She just got these gorgeous Doc Marten shoes. And I was like, I guess I can just borrow those now. Like that's wild. You came out of my body and now I could borrow your shoes.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  You know, you can't have your skin off all the time, as you put it. That would just be so exhausting, but I do really feel grateful for those moments.

• 23:54Chris Duffy?

  It's also, you know, I felt with my wife Molly, I felt this rage and anger at a lot of things, but in particular at the narrative that's like, there's a silver lining to every cloud and you're going to learn something from this. Cause I was like, no, it's just bad. It's okay. It can just be bad. And it really is just bad. And when I read your writing, I feel a similar, a similar, but distinct pushback and anger at the narrative around your dad, that it is just grief and just loss. It feels like you, it's very important in your writing to say, this is not caretaking for a person who I love so much, who has dementia. It is not just a downhill slide that is the entirety of it. That's not the metaphor that's correct.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I feel, I do feel so strongly about that. And I think it's so linked to like ableism for me and our notions about what makes a person worthwhile. My brother is, identifies as being autistic and works with non-verbal autistic teenagers to like write their own poetry and like, has taught me so much about neurodiversity. And then of course this happens to my dad. So he's like the perfect partner, like care partner to be in this with. And I have other friends who are like incredible disability justice advocates that have taught me so much about this in like the last, you know, five, 10 years. But I, I really feel like if you look at someone with dementia or Alzheimer's, as I used to, like, you know, of course it's a punch in the gut to even think about

• 25:24Speaker 01

  someone you love having it as only like a terrible worst possible fate experience, then you are inherently assuming something about like what makes a person worthwhile. And also about like his internal experience. It's funny. We were just talking about Freaky Friday and I was at the bar with my brother and he was like, who would you want a Freaky Friday with? And I was like, so many people. I want a Freaky Friday with so many people. But first and foremost, probably my dad, just because to right now be inside of his own experience would be. So profound. I so wonder what it's like in there. And this is true of a lot of people with various kinds of disabilities or illness,

• 26:05Speaker 01

  some of which suck a lot of the time, but some of which like they find all sorts of creative, beautiful ways to move through the world that might be like way more present than what you and I might be able to do because we're more able-bodied or neurotypical. So it's like, it's just been very humbling for me to be exposed to disability justice as kind of like a framework and also now to experience it through my dad. And it, it does make me angry that other people assume, people assume that it's like shittier to be other people. And it's like, you don't even know what it's like to be other people. And also like, it might be shitty to be you in lots of ways that you're

• 26:45Speaker 01

  just like, you know, because you haven't been pushed to be more creative and present and attentive and move more slowly and, you know, all the things that some people with disabilities have to do, like you, you don't even know what you're missing out on, but you're like rushing through life, like doing your productivity plan and everything's like working out for you and you're feeling sorry for other people. I do hate pity. I think pity really pisses me off.

• 27:10Chris Duffy?

  Okay. So here's this, this is an interesting then, bridge into another thing I wanted to talk about, which is something I know you and I both like to do is we like to help other people, very comfortable in the helping other people. It's very hard when you're in a period of life where you need to accept help. One of the things that came up in my search for Courtney Martin, plus sending this to everyone I know, you have to read this, was an article you wrote about getting a meal train where friends and family started bringing food over so you wouldn't have to cook. And there's a paragraph in it that really stuck with me. You wrote, "The point of being helped is not that you have earned the help in some measurable way, some litmus test of extraordinary suffering. The point of being helped is actually the opposite, that you are ordinary, which

• 27:55Chris Duffy?

  is to say, human, and going through a thing. And people are moved by the universal reality that we are sometimes the person going through a thing. And sometimes the person showing up for a person going through a thing. And all of that is immeasurable and sacred."

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:10Chris Duffy?

  That, I just hit me so hard when I read that because. I find it so difficult to accept that kind of help, even when I need it. Because it's like, well, I don't need it as much as other people. And yet, when, for example, when we had our, our, our baby and people brought over food, I just wept in a way that surprised me, that someone is bringing over a pot of chili. And I started weeping and I just was like, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm not sad. I'm so happy, I'm so grateful that you're doing this. It just is so nice that you're doing this and, you know. But yeah, I guess I'd just love for you to expand on that feeling of allowing yourself to be cared for in these ways that are just human, are just ordinary.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's become something I really want to get better at through the sandwich generation caregiving moment, which is like, kind of broken me and forced me to accept help as that piece talks about. And in part because I realize, watching my mom, who had such a hard time accepting help with my dad, that if you don't start practicing it now, it's really hard to practice it when you turn 75, when you're like, you know, if you're lucky enough to live that long without being disabled, let's say, and then your body's not working and you have to accept help, it's a torture because you have no muscles for it.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  So I'm really resolving to get better at accepting help as a form of like, ensuring that my older age is, you know, beautiful and less full of tension around this particular issue. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, I've really learned, if we don't receive help, then we're basically like, stopping the cycle, this like, very beautiful, virtuous, sacred cycle of helping and being helped. And that's also the thing I've been watching with my mom as we live with her. And she, as I said, is like, dealing with a lot emotionally, physically. But my brother and I figured out, like, we have to honor the ways she is helping us

• 30:15Speaker 01

  and keep giving her opportunities to help us and mother us and grandmother our children and, you know, make great recommendations for things because she's an incredible researcher and, you know, usually knows all the cool cultural stuff even before we do. She needs to feel like she's helping the family, even if she is the elder that is now also being helped, or everything just gets kind of blocked up spiritually, it feels like, and relationally. So. I do think, you know, it's both imperative for us, you know, we're both kind of in midlife moments, like for this beautiful old age that I hope we both get to have to practice accepting help now and to keep in mind that it is what makes,

• 31:00Speaker 01

  makes everything flow. And it's such a gift to other people to help you. Like people love bringing you that chili, you know, that's like, they get to participate in the, one of the most beautiful little windows of your whole life, which is like the moment that a baby comes home. Right? I mean, the shadow side of all this is like, if we want to be the helpers all the time, it means there is some arrogance to that. I really like, for myself of just like, why should you never be the one who needs help? Like, why should, you know, and I want to let that go as much as I can.

• 31:30Chris Duffy?

  Yeah. There's a lot that we're talking about that's like in the practical, like, how do you do the nitty gritty of actually getting through caretaking and getting what you need and all of that. And so what advice would you give someone who is in the midst of caregiving right now?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  I think the thing I've figured out more than anything else is to like, to make caregiving sustainable, I have to move towards my own joy within the caregiving, like not see it as selfish to want to do things with the people I'm caring for that I love and that light me up. So with my kids, that means I make a lot of art with them because that's a way that we can spend time together that soothes me, makes me happy, inspires me, and they like it. One of them likes it probably more than the other. But so that works for me. When I was trying to figure out how to spend time with my dad, as his brain was, you know, unbecoming itself, as we've been discussing, I learned like, reading Pema

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Chodron out loud helps me. And also, he seems pretty interested. Going on short walks helps me. He seems good. Like, we would sing together, but hopefully like figuring out truly mutual ways of being together that can give you both joy. Because otherwise, it can get like incredibly joyless. And then I also think

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Really understanding seasons, I think it's so easy to like, sometimes it feels like it's never gonna change. Like, you know, whether it's like you're sleep training a baby and you're just like, I'm gonna die. It's like, no, you're not gonna die. Someday this baby will learn to sleep. And I've had moments, and I'm actually like very much in this moment with my dad, because as we record this, like, he's in hospice, which means he probably has six months or less to live. Part of me wants to just press a fast forward button, just to be like, okay, pull off the band-aid, like, get this over with. And then part of me is, no, like, this is the season. This is like happening, and then it's gonna not be happening. And the more that I can just remind myself, none of this is forever, whether it's incredibly good or incredibly bad,

• 33:35Speaker 01

  the more I think I can handle the emotional part of caregiving.

• 33:41Chris Duffy?

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• 34:25Speaker 03

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• 34:55Speaker 04

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 35:30Chris Duffy?

  What about if you are someone who loves a caregiver or is close to someone who is a caregiver? What can you do to help or to show them grace? Or conversely, what should you not do?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Well, don't judge them. I mean, that's so obvious. But I think like I was actually on a little caregiver support group call yesterday with a bunch of my old lady friends, and they're all taking care of their husbands. And they were talking about how, you know, people will like judge how they're handling things. And it just is like, Jesus, life is so hard. You know, you may have a million ideas of what, how someone should be caregiving for someone else. But particularly if you're not doing like the heavy lifting, just give them a tremendous amount of grace around what it feels like and what creative solutions they have to come up with to make it all work. And, and just like, you know, that they're the expert on their person, you know, they're the one

• 36:31Speaker 01

  that's spending the most time with them. So you may have all kinds of cute ideas. I mean, this is a close cousin to pity, I think, is like the, you know, quick fix towards caregivers. Like, oh, you know, people be like, have you thought of taking your dad to? Trying to think of an example, but I'd just be like, dude, trust me, I've thought about everything. Like, I'm with this dude. I live with him. I like, I think just anything you can do to assume, getting back to humility, that you have no idea. How hard it is or how creative this person has been in trying to figure it out. You know, having said that, you could say, would it be helpful if I researched X, Y, or Z thing? I think that can be a huge help. I think this is like a very boring answer, but it's real is like taking the administrative

• 37:16Speaker 01

  load off of caregivers can just be massive. I had one moment where a mutual friend of ours, Wendy McNutton, who's one of my besties, was like, I'm gonna call, like, I want to make, do one of your like really annoying calls. Tell me who to call, because she's like an amazing advocate on the phone. She's like, just like a badass on administrative advocacy, kind of like she knows how to like get to the person who can do the thing. So I can't remember, I think I let her call like the social security office or something like wild for my parents. And I don't think it totally worked, but it was like just such a relief that someone was gonna be on it for me and with me. So look for the boring stuff, you know, look for the really practical things.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  The lasagna is great, you know, the chili is great, but also like, be like, is there something super logistical and administrative and annoying that I could do for you? Because that can make such a massive difference.

• 38:10Chris Duffy?

  I had a version of this with, with you a little bit, not indirectly, where I, I ran into your husband in a work setting. And we're kind of making very small talk. And then I was like, oh, I've been reading Courtney's writing about what you're going through with her dad, and I'm really sorry to hear that. And I felt so awkward having said it, even though it was the real thing to say. Do you know what I mean? I was like, I shouldn't have acknowledged that. But then

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:39Chris Duffy?

  I, I should have just said like, crazy weather, huh? It's pretty cold. Like

• 38:44Speaker 01

  How about them Dodgers?

• 38:45Chris Duffy?

  Yeah, how about the Dodgers? Wow, another win. And this was, you know, this was months ago, but it's funny because it stuck with me because I thought like, why did I feel weird bringing up a thing that was like obviously real? And it's not like I'm surprising him. It's part of his life, too.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. I, I don't get that at all. Like, I'm always the person in the corner, like, talking about death. So I, if I saw you and I knew you'd been through something, I might like, take one minute to say, how about the weather of the Dodgers? But then like, my next thing is gonna be, Chris, I saw that you're going through this thing. Like, that was the kindest thing ever that you brought that up with John. And I just want to be someone who does that. And, and I mean, I try to have enough kind of empathy and intuition to see if someone's just like, I really don't want to talk about it right now and be like, totally get that. My husband could have said to you, I'm so grateful you acknowledge that. And like, I just can't even talk about it.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  And I bet you would have been super graceful about that and been like, totally, man. Just wanted you to know I'm, I noted it, you know?

• 39:49Chris Duffy?

  To read from another one of your essays, which is related to this. And this is from kneeling before a locked door. You wrote, "When you're on your knees, both in the intimate and political contexts, you discover that words won't save you. This has also been the sermon of my dad's dementia. What saves you is breath, tenderness, the accompaniment that comes from true friendship, your own indefatigable imagination, making things. I got a big pail of soapy water yesterday and cleaned patio furniture for an hour and it felt like praying. I unfolded parchment paper to reveal some flowers I dried back in the spring and started arranging them on a piece of cardboard. I cooked some soup and then fed my mom and brother a modest dinner. I know our politics won't be fixed by the perfect words either, only making people feel seen and heard and part of something.

• 40:32Chris Duffy?

  Like even modest soup will get us back to understanding our collective inheritance, obligation and potential with one another as a country. Less words, less speed, more stillness and food and solidarity and singing." I feel like that's a really, for me, an idea that brings together all of the things that we've been talking about, that the big picture problems in our world, the political and international issues and the incredibly intimate and personal ones. It's not some sort of perfect answer. It's about these actions and these tiny ways of allowing other people and ourselves to work towards something else.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  I love that. And I was just thinking, you're making me feel like my dad. And it's like, it's like the spirit of my dad coming back in this, in this conversation.

• 41:24Chris Duffy?

  That's so nice.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Such a massive, massive gift.

• 41:28Chris Duffy?

  I'm extremely flattered to, to hear that.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  I guess all my work is basically about like, being a human is so hard and so universally hard. Like, none of us will escape the ways in which it's hard, even if we do for a very long time. And it is just so beautiful. And what a profound gift to, to be alive with other humans and have that experience of not having skin that you described. I mean, that's like, that's what it's all about to me. So anyway, I can like, help people wrap words around that and also just like, really value it. Like, be like, this is life. It's not like, anything I can do to help people feel the ways in which what happens within our homes and our communities is really what life is defined by.

• 42:15Chris Duffy?

  Well, Courtney, thank you so much for being on the show. This was such a pleasure, really.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. This is such a treat. Thank you, Chris.

• 42:24Chris Duffy?

  That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to Courtney Martin. Her fantastic newsletter is called Examined Family. Her podcast is The Wise Unknown. And you can find information about all of her books, including Learning in Public, on her website, courtneyemartin.com. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and my new nonfiction book is called Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy. And it is out now. You can find out more about the book and my live show dates and all the other stuff I do at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a caregiving and a caretaking group of sweetie pies. On the TED side, we're doted on by Daniela Balarezzo, Ben Ben Chang, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina

• 43:06Chris Duffy?

  Bohanini, Laney La, Tensaka Sung Manivong, Antonia Lei, and Joseph De Bruyne. This episode was fact-checked by Matthias Salas, who cares most deeply about the truth. On the PRX side, they're finding solutions to all of life's audio problems. Morgan Flannery, Norgil, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks to you for listening. Please, send this episode to anyone and everyone you care about. We will be back next week with even more How to Be a Better Human. Until then, thanks for listening and take care.

• 43:39Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today.

• 44:18Chris Duffy?

  Donate at N R D C dot org slash human, and your gift will be matched five times. This episode is sponsored by PayPal. This holiday season, don't miss your chance to turn "just looking" into "just bought it." Make it easy for your customers to say yes on the spot. PayPal Checkout is a trusted conversion engine fueled by 400 million active PayPal and Venmo accounts. And when you add Pay Later, you can turn holiday shoppers into regulars. 96% of Pay Later shoppers are repeat users. So if you give them Pay Later flexibility now, it could help earn their loyalty all year long. PayPal is built for all business. Get started at PayPal dot com slash business.

• 45:01Chris Duffy?

  PayPal data eight markets, March 2025 to February 2026. Repeat users defined as more than one Pay Later purchase in the past year.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne dot com slash bank. Capital One, N A, Member FDIC.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.