How do men provide care?
When I picked up Amateur, I didn't realize I was picking up a book about caregiving. But it's inescapable.
The book is ostensibly an examination of what makes someone a man, discovered as Thomas McBee picks up boxing in preparation for a fight in Madison Square Garden. But McBee is reeling after his mother's death from cancer and that story is woven throughout the book.
“[W]hen Mom was dying, Clare had been the one to take family leave from work and brush Mom’s hair and paint her nails so that she could exist in her body, even as it poisoned her. Clare had done the hard, dirty work of being present for my mom, who only showed herself in this way to her daughter. As I met with lawyers and funeral directors, my sister had been the dutiful daughter, just as our mother had done for her mother, and that, more than anything, was what I was sorry for."
McBee has unique insight into the ways gender colors our experiences and what we expect of ourselves and each other.
PS. If you're supporting a loved one as they transition, join the conversation in our LGBTQ+ caregivers group.