Creating, collecting, and sharing thoughts and ideas. And learning along the way.
“In the past 3 months, how often did you feel very tired or exhausted? Would you say never, some days, most days, or every day?” the CDC asked. People who said they tired or exhausted on most days or every day were categorized as often feeling very tired or exhausted.
Feeling run down? Dog-tired?
Who isn’t, right?
But who’s more exhausted: men or women?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , though it’s one that you’d probably could have come up without a second’s thought.
More women than men said they felt very tired or exhausted most days or every day when government surveyors . Overall, about 15 percent of women said they were worn out compared with 10 percent of the men.
Now, it gets even more interesting, or maybe it’s just obvious, when you break down the responses by age.
The biggest difference in tiredness by sex is in the 18-44 age group. Women in the group were about twice as likely as men to feel wiped out: 16 percent versus 9 percent.
Now what in the world could be going on? Hmm.
A quick spin to another CDC data resource offers a clue. While it’s true that U.S. women are, on average, waiting longer to have kids, that first birth . Quite a coincidence!
As people (and their children) grow older, the gender gap in fatigue fades. Among people 45-64, about 16 percent of women are exhausted compared with 12 percent of men. After that, the apparent differences of a few percentage points are really just a statistical muddle.
I must admit that I did not read through each and every page of the voluminous tome that this is. It is a stack of case studies full of details of the many ways in which our children actually do fall far from the tree, i.e., they are not like us in so many ways.
And yet, there is a common thread that binds all these myriad stories together: the enduring love of a parent that is able to accept, cope and even thrive amidst the most heart-breaking of circumstances surrounding one’s child.
The book contains fascinating accounts on Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, disability, prodigies, transgender identity, and children who are conceived during a rape and those who become criminals. Also, it contains an equally fascinating account of Solomon’s own personal journey of self-identity.
