This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Angela Davis, 65, who lives in New Orleans with her 87-year-old mom with dementia . She said her mom’s at-home care is upward of $7,000 a month. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
My mom and dad were never married. I grew up in New Orleans and went to an all-girls Catholic high school. My mom was a school teacher and bought a house in her 30s, which I recently transferred to my son. My dad was a math teacher, but left that to help his dad run a furniture moving business.
I went to Fisk University and moved to Texas, then Connecticut. I did my clinical fellowship at Yale…
