I have only read about a quarter of the book so far, so this point might be addressed later on, but I think that a major question is: Why is caregiving undervalued in US society? Overall, I think Slaughter is certainly right that it is undervalued. Even if there are some people who are acutely aware of its value (and probably more women than men in this set), I think that the importance of caregiving is not generally understood.
I have a tentative hypothesis about the reason that caregiving is undervalued, and it is not simply that it is a responsibility that is typically handled by women.
Rather, I think that people in general are unaware of the significance of the care given to them. The fact that people’s memories tend to start at age 3 or 4, with very limited memory of the earlier time, means that people have no recollection of the care given to them when they were most vulnerable. Later on, there is also a great deal of caregiving of children, teenagers, and young adults, but I think this is not fully registered by the recipient of the care. We were all super-easy to bring up, right? Nothing to it!
Then, at the other end of the age spectrum, I doubt that anyone wants to think about the possibility that they will need care as they approach the end of life. Certainly I’d rather not think about it.
Most employers do not accommodate leave to take care of an elderly parent very well, even though that is covered by FMLA. I think that Slaughter is right that people are often discouraged from taking leave that they are legally entitled to take, because the attitudes in the workplace suggest that one is not serious about a career if one takes the leave that is technically available.
In my opinion, if people actually understood what caregiving entails, and how genuinely important it is, more value would be attached to it.