Marketplace Features

  A word from the producer, Martha Little:

»The Idea:

I got the idea for this project after listening to a story on Marketplace. It was about a young woman entrepreneur who decided to start a concierge service to take care of odd jobs for employees during the day, everything from getting shoes fixed to making sure a plumber goes to your house. Ironically, she was so busy running the company, she couldn't even take advantage of the services she offered. I wondered at that moment how she would evaluate this life choice later on. Would she regret it on her death bed?

What also drove me to pursue this topic were my own personal demons. As a mother of one (and another on the way) I am, I'm sure, like a lot of parents, always wondering am I striking the right balance? Am I giving too much to work at the expense of my family? Am I going to look back and regret? (Ironically, as my husband reminds me, I had to spend quite a few days travelling away from my family to work on this project.) Now that it's finished, I can't say that I personally have found any profound answer to that question. Defining what "finding a balance" means, clearly, is very personal and subjective. But I did discover one important thing that already may be obvious to many out there: you gotta force that question in front of your face on a rigorous basis. Consistent reevaluation may be the only key to salvation.

Despite the obstacles I encountered in pursuing this project (which are mentioned below), many generous souls were willing to talk to me. Unfortunately I couldn't include all of them in this body of work. To them and their families I extend a very warm and heartfelt thanks for sharing with me their precious time. I also extend the same thanks to Robert, Carl, Wendy Jo, Ross and Sister Jean and their families for the gifts they gave.

This project would not have happened without the support of Marketplace's Executive Producer J.J. Yore. I thank him for sharing in the vision of what it could be and for providing such generous funding. I am deeply grateful to Marketplace's Senior Producer David Brown for serving as a constant sounding board and providing invaluable and insightful criticism that helped shaped this work. To Charlton Thorp, I say, "bless you," for your magical ear and finesse at the mixing board. And I thank Ben Adair for his assistance on many of the music selections.

»My Approach:

I made the conscious decision to interview middle-to-upper-middle-class people who had had careers. My thought was that working class people often, unfortunately, don't have nearly as much of a choice about whether they should work or spend more time with their families.

My original aim was to talk to people from a diverse demographic background. I tried to get a wide geographic sample by travelling to 3 other major cities besides Los Angeles, recognizing that I was favoring an urban rather than a rural population. I also tried to find people who came from a wide age range. I soon learned that it was extremely hard to find people willing to talk who were in their 30s or 40s because many of these people were understandably outraged to discover that they were terminally ill. Unlike older folks who had already lived a full life, the younger people were having a hard enough time accepting what was happening to them and really weren't ready to look back.

One area in which I was really not successful was in finding people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I learned from many of the hospices that I spoke to that, for a variety of reasons, hospices are most heavily used by white people. I did try to go through churches to find African American and Latino individuals, but many of the churches I spoke with said the whole point of their belief structure was the idea that people could be healed. Therefore, these people would not be encouraged to recognize they were dying and to reflect on their past.

The lack of ethnic diversity in this series is unfortunate. I'm sure that we would have all benefitted from hearing a wider variety of stories, not only that dealt with the "balance" issue," but on other issues we all face as we wander through life.