Her supervisors empathized. They knew why Marcy Sherman-Lewis, a customer service agent, was missing workdays: Both her parents, who lived an hour away, had Alzheimer’s disease.

“My mother had doctors’ appointments; my father had doctors’ appointments,” said Ms. Sherman-Lewis, an only child. “I was constantly running up and down the highway.”

Once she had used up her vacation, sick days and personal days, though, her bosses balked at giving her additional time away from the job. “I knew they wanted me at the office more,” Ms. Sherman-Lewis said. “They asked, ‘What’s your plan? What are you going to do? Put them in a nursing home?’”

Her plan: She resigned in 2007 so that she and her husband, a retired engineer, could move from Overland Park, Kan., to her parents’ city, St. Joseph, Mo. “I was sure I could find work, and I did,” she said. “It worked out perfectly, at first.”

But Alzheimer’s goes only one way. Ms. Sherman-Lewis got calls at the office. Her parents mixed up their medications. Her father was growing incontinent. Her mother, reaching over the stove, set her arm on fire.

She was not badly burned, “but it put the fear of God in me,” Ms. Sherman-Lewis said. She left the work force again in 2009, possibly for good. Although her parents have since died, her 77-year-old husband received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis a year ago and requires her full-time attention.

Just 60, Ms. Sherman-Lewis doesn’t regret her decisions, but she wonders if she’ll ever work again. Paid family leave, now mandated in three states and likely to come before several state legislatures next year, might have extended her career.

We often hear family leave called “maternity leave.” But an estimated 34 million Americans cared for someone over age 50 in the past year, and the majority were employed, according to the latest caregiving study by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving.

These workers face a particularly difficult juggling act. Child care, for those fortunate enough to have healthy kids, becomes reasonably predictable over time, aside from the inevitable ear infections and transient illnesses.

Elder care, however, takes life-altering turns without warning: the crippling fall, the massive stroke. An older person’s need for assistance generally rises; given increased life spans, some workers will care for their parents longer and more intensively than they did their children.

Moreover, “the emotional toll is different,” said Kenneth Matos, senior research director at the Families and Work Institute.

“Someone raising a child is headed for happier events” and greater independence. “Someone caring for an elder is headed for sadder experiences.”

Paula Span explores the unprecedented challenges posed by a rapidly aging population.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act helps some working caregivers — it protects their jobs, for one thing — but the law has significant limitations. It covers only about 60 percent of the working population (exempting employers with fewer than 50 employees) and only those caring for a spouse, parent or child — not in-laws or grandparents. And of course, it’s unpaid.

See more at:

The New York Times