Bear a burden

To bear a burden

Today’s phrase is to bear a burden. Tijuana is in the unlucky position of being the last city on the migrant caravan’s long journey to the US border. Since they can’t enter the US all at once, Tijuana has to bear the burden of housing and caring for the thousands of people who have arrived with no jobs and no resources of their own. Tijuana has to be responsible for it, Tijuana has to do the work, to carry the load. When you have to do something that is difficult, stressful, painful, or emotionally difficult—especially for someone else.

Let me try to give a few examples for you. A few years ago, there was a similar situation in Europe, where thousands of people would come from Africa on boats, trying to land in Greece and Italy. Those two countries had to bear the burden of many new migrants. Accepting asylum applications is difficult, and those two countries had to do it because they were the closest to the sea routes the migrants were taking.

These tend to be difficult situations. A middle-aged person might find that his or her parents don’t have enough money to survive on their own. That person might have to bear the burden of supporting his or her parents in their old age. That would be an example of bear a burden. Here’s another one. When two parents get divorced, it’s very sad for their children. The kids often bear an emotional burden in those situations; they pay an emotional price when a family breaks up.

If one of your coworkers quits unexpectedly, the rest of you might have to bear the burden of doing his or her work, at least until a replacement is hired.

Here’s a question. When a family—a mom and a dad—have kids, who bears the burden of child care? It’s usually the mom, right? I think we find that even in places where both mothers and fathers have access to flexible work schedules and child care, it still winds up being the moms who bear the greatest burden of child care. A burden doesn’t have to be a bad thing—raising kids is a great thing to do. But it is hard work, and that is a burden that women tend to bear more than men. In general, right, obviously that doesn’t hold true in every case.

Have we reached the end? The program never really ends, we just take a break for a couple of days. So it is time for our break. We’ll be back together on Monday. Monday, December 3; we’ll flip the calendar to December this weekend. It’s officially the holiday season here in the US—holiday lights up in the streets, Christmas trees on the roofs of cars, sales in the stores. It’s a fun time of year. Here in Chicago they put Christmas lights up in the trees at our city zoo, the Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s really pretty. You know, some people try not to visit northern cities in the winter, but I would say an exception to that would be this time of year. If you have the chance to visit Chicago or New York between, say, Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, then you should do it. Bring some sweaters. But it is a fun time of year to be in New York or Chicago.

Okay—next episode is on Monday. Our topic Monday is going to be the restoration of a famous European landmark. I won’t tell you which one it is, but I will tell you that I went there as a 12-year old. So I’ll leave you in suspense until Episode 108. Have a great weekend! JR and I will be back Monday.