September 01, 2003
What I’m reading on and offline coalesces around the concept of caring.
Blogger Jeneane Sessum’s daughter, Jenna, is rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening staff infection from a cat bite. As she blogs about her fear, her love, her frustrations, Jeneane writes:
Our children are, as parents, all that matters. Really all. Nothing else. No. Not even yourself.
Blogger Debbie Gleason leaves the following as part of her comment to me on this post:
My mom and I have commiserated about being caregivers. During the first four years of my older daughter's life, she was taking care of my dad who died in December 2000. My older daughter has severe cerebral palsy. No health problems with that, thankfully, but a challenge all the same. My mom and I were each other's lifelines, especially in the first two years of my daughter's life when no one had any answers for me. My mom's "busman's holiday" was when she'd leave my dad with hired help for a few hours and meet my daughter and I before one of her therapies. We'd have lunch and then go to my daughter's Feldenkrais lesson.
She blogs more about her compassionate struggles on her own blog.
Throughout human history, it is mainly women who are the caregivers, who love unconditionally, who put their own needs aside for the sake of those they love and/or those they feel responsibility toward. Why are there not more men who make that choice? Maybe something in that roller-coaster of a ride novel Boomeritis offers an honest answer:
On page 46 of the novel, the persona of transformational guru Ken Wilber writes:
Carole Gilligan found, for example, that female moral development tends to go through three general stages, which she calls selfish, care, and universal care. In each of these stages, the circle of care and compassion expands while egocentrism declines…
[snip]
Incidentally males go through the same three general stages, although according to Gilligan, they usually emphasize rights and justice while female emphasize care and relationship. Gilligan believes that after the third stage, in both sexes, there can be an integration of both attitudes, so that at the universal-integral stage, both men and women integrate the male and female voices in themselves, thus uniting justice and compassion.
And then on the next page in his novel, the 23-year old egocentric arrested-development persona of Ken Wilber writes:
I am the detached monological eyeball my feminist professors hate. Detached and disembodied, I gaze on all- objectifying, reducing, humiliating all. I am the Cartesian God, come to annoy the world. What good is being a male if you can’t sexually objectify? I see all, I want all, I want to take it all for my explosive release, whereupon the depression temporarily forgets its name and my Siamese twin dislocates, only to regain strength and plot its quick return.
...after the third stage, in both sexes, there can be an integration of both attitudes, so that at the universal-integral stage, both men and women integrate the male and female voices in themselves, thus uniting justice and compassion.
Yes, indeed, Carol Gilligan, yes indeed. And I wonder if I will live to see it happen on any kind of meaningful scale??
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Old Comments (5)
mare on 01 Sep 2003
Elaine, I relate to this all too well. Almost two years ago my grandmother passed away from complications of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Although she has four sons and one daughter that were supposed to be there for her, it didn't happen.
I know it was difficult for my father to handle his mother living her final moments, he took to avoidance and even deflection. His siblings contributed by spending a couple of hours with her and dropping off food. Of course, these tasks were important but what about the moments at night where she had difficulty breathing or using the bathroom? Or what about the moment where she was finally told that they were just wishing she would live what she has left to the fullest because there was nothing else that could be done?
I often wonder, when the time comes with my parents - will the males in my family ever do the same as my grandfather did for his ailing wife?
deddette on 02 Sep 2003
i am tiring of man as victim to the post-feminist bomb.
i can only speak for the man in my life-Roberto. on his day off, he went to the market while his children and i played video games. he returned with bagels for breakfast tomorrow, pizza for dinner tonight, and movies for he and i to watch after the kids have gone to sleep.
in between supper and dreamland, Roberto and i shared a lovely glass of cabernet that he thougthfully poured, and we told the children stories of our 'olden days.'
he did all that, while i sat on my ass, and the kids ate icecream sandwiches.
boys are cool.
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Elaine on 02 Sep 2003
Consider yourself fortunate, Dedette. For every Roberto you can point to, I'll show you a thousand opposites. It's not that Robertos don't happen; it's that they are still rare on this planet.
Elaine on 02 Sep 2003
And I invite you to link over to this:
http://www.kalilily.net/weblog/03/05/11/122507.html
one of my better rants about women, mothers, and our difficult histories.
deddette on 02 Sep 2003
i understand, Elaine. but, i don't want men to be women. i don't want a crossbreed. Roberto's idea of caring is to wander the market...prolly fulfilling some male need to hunt and gather. my way of caring is to braid his daughter's hair before she goes to the office with him this morning.
i dunno. what do i know?
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