Care II
Caring, as a central hub around which the spokes of virtues spin and the cobwebs of sins will not cling, by definition must not sit and idly rotate. It really isn’t caring unless it is coupled with action…sacrifice even. I am one who is often deceived into believing that I actually care about certain things, very hip and vogue sorts of issues that make me feel good about caring for them. Sadly, much of my “caring” is little more than making sure to convince other people that I care and that they should too. In so doing, I feel terribly good about myself and thus the vicious cycle goes round and round and round – but it isn’t the wheel of Caring that I am moving upon.
Real caring – far more than an emotion - is something we do precious little of these days, our behavior is as if we do not have the time. Have you ever stopped to wonder how odd it is that we have invented professionals to CARE in our stead? Both parents MUST work and therefore we hire professional strangers to CARE for our children – often even our infant children. None of our adult children apparently have time enough and so we hire professional strangers to CARE for our aged Moms and Dads. Both of these are touchy subjects, but I believe we as a society ought to think abit more about them.
Consider also the innumerable options for pre-packaged meals that we have today. For evey food, there is pre-packaged "instant" version of it - filled with Satan only knows what to add the "instantness" to it. Mom (or Dad) simply do not have the time to cook anymore. And Mom needn’t pack school lunches for the kids anymore, she need only reach into the fridge and pick out the packages of “Lunchables”…of course the fact that these and other prepackaged foods are FAR more expensive than if Mom or Dad had shopped more wisely and made made the lunch themselves seems, as an answer, to escape our collective questioning of why we must all work so hard and often to pay for our modern and marvelous life.
Some would say my grandmother led a rather pointless life, I suspect for many of you your grandmothers would also fail the litmus test of modern tatses for a worthwhile life. For our grandmothers, the raising and CARING for their family was their career. Imagine that for a moment: a FULL-TIME (actually more than that) job of CARING. For Grandma, cooking and cleaning was more than work...it was CARE and it was, quite literally, love incarnate. Today it is seen as a waste, a life defined by caring for others - a waste. A life not lived up to her full potential, better that Grandma should have worn extra pointy shoes, slacks, carried a laptop and cell phone and sold Real Estate while someone else CARED for her kids and Kraft/Oscar Meyer Lunchables fed the kids. At least the kids could be bussed back and forth in a Lexus.
Yes, we simply don’t have time and therefore we often do not even know (let alone CARE about) the people who may in fact sleep a mere 20 feet from where we sleep – albeit behind a five foot lawn buffer and some wood and drywall. We have neighbors we hardly know at all - however, no one - save perhaps Bill Gates - can afford CARE professionals for their neighbors. And, speaking of our “modern” life, the internet now affords us the ability today to interact with human beings with aboslute freedom of CARE. We always possess the ability to simply shut them off if we should happen to uncomfortably feel pressure to actually CARE for them. Truth is, caring does not travel well over cable...
…to be continued…
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I disagree with saying "Some would say my grandmother led a rather pointless life, I suspect for many of you your grandmothers would also fail the litmus test of modern tatses for a worthwhile life. For our grandmothers, the raising and CARING for their family was their career." Even as a teenager, I never thought of any of my grandmothers as having lived meaningless or worthless lives. I never thought my grandmothers lives were "pointless", maybe I'm misunderstanding how you're using this word. What's a pointless life, raising a family, being a wife and mother? I do, as a professional caregiver, agree that people should think more about the future and about caring for family and maybe sacrifice things to do so themselves, or at least visit people on a regular basis. I have patients who's family come on a daily basis, and then patients who's family live in the same town and NEVER visit. It's sad, but I don't have a parent or spouse with Alzheimer's, or a sister with Huntington's chorea, I haven't dealt with years of disease and sickness, how can I judge them by what I see?
To Meg, take it from someone who works in nuring homes, there's no "army of professional care givers", there's NEVER enough to go around. I don't do it to feel good about myself, I come home stressed and anxious. I deal with death and suffering every day. It doesn't make me feel good. But I love it. It's a calling. Do those in our lives "suffer in silence"? That seems a pretty harsh statement. There has to be a balance. I don't neglect my loved ones. Those things like shelters and soup kitchens are necessary and we need people to work in them and there's never enough help. There's never enough care givers to work in nursing homes. They may be strangers, but I went to a patient's funeral this week and cried and hugged her daughter. I took care of her almost every day for two years. That's real life.
(and it's past my bedtime)
I never thought my grandmothers lives were "pointless", maybe I'm misunderstanding how you're using this word. What's a pointless life, raising a family, being a wife and mother?
Spot on...exactly what I mean. I am not saying that such a life is pointless, quite the opposite. However, more and more our culture today tends to frown upon a "career at home." Rather we are more and more (though there has been some backlash in the last few years) seeing an attitude that seems to believe that one's worth is found NOT in their physical presence with their children, but upon their material provision for their children...more than that...one's career in the "real world" outside the home is really where one's personal worth is found. So, what I am saying is that nowadays people think Hilary Clinton is a real example of a worthy female life - "boy she sure went out and made something of herself." As opposed to the unnamed woman who "gave up" a high powered career in order to CARE for her family - in a very very professional and natural way. So, you see...I am contrasting what I perceive to be the dominant mindset of today (because I used to believe it myself) with what I now believe to be more true, more wholesome, more natural.
Let me also be clear...I make no judgements whatsoever about ANYONE's decision to work or put their aged loved ones in homes. But I WILL raise the questions none-the-less...we should AT THE VERY LEAST ask the question: must we? Is this really best for my family? I would say in some case the answer will be yes...but too often I suspect we do not ask anymore at all. It is expected that our infants will be in daycare and it is expected that our aged will be in "homes." And to do otherwise is more and more seen as an unusual choice.
I would ask all of us, as a society, should it really be seen as unusual?
Individuals are going to have to ask themselves - in the case of the aged - if professional care is needed. Just as surely as I have to decide if an injury sustained by one of my kids requires a bandaid and a kiss or a professional caregiver.
Thank God for those caregivers...especially those of such qualities as yourself, Dawn...but maybe we wouldn't have such a shortage of them if we as a society learned to have more time to care ourselves.
one's parents that way.