Man Enough to Care

A Wayfarer Studios production created in partnership with Caring Across Generations, the filmed roundtable discussion explores several caregiving themes related to masculinity. It is led by actor and director Justin Baldoni (Jane the Virgin, Clouds, Five Feet Apart) and features former NFL star Devon Still, actor Nathan Kress (iCarly, Star Wars Rebels), comedian and writer Zach Anner (Speechless), caregiving advocate Robert Espinoza (Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute), and Caring Across Generations’ Director Ai-jen Poo.

This program, available as a one-hour special or 5-part short form limited series, is a uniquely vulnerable, empathic and uplifting exploration of what it means to give care and be cared for as a man in today’s society.

Today, 53 million family caregivers in America provide physical and emotional care for an ill, aging, or disabled loved one at home. But we rarely talk about it, let alone the fact that 40% of caregivers for adults are men. While we will all give or receive care in our lives, caregiving is often invisible and undervalued.

We all pay the price when caregiving remains invisible and gendered in outdated ways. Studies have found caregiving men, especially those caring for adults, tend to be more isolated, reluctant to ask for help, and unprepared to take on new caregiving responsibilities.

Even when caregiving support like paid leave is available, men can be less likely to take it. Women, more often expected to be caregivers with inadequate support, end up experiencing it as a burden with significant costs to their financial, physical and emotional health. Professional caregiving women are paid poverty wages and lack the benefits and protections the dignity of their labor deserves.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the value of care, and brought many people, including men, into the realization of the caregiving role they play in their families. The pandemic has also mainstreamed the idea that families do better when caregiving can be a collective effort with shared responsibilities, communities of care, and systematic support in the form of inclusive, transformative policy solutions (childcare supports, paid medical and family leave, and long-term support and services).

By publicly sharing these videos and your stories, we are asking people to join the movement to build a culture of care: where care is considered a strength and part of a newly expanded notion of masculinity; and where the work of care is fairly valued, supported and compensated.