Compassionate Societies

Towards a Caring Society

I recently read Forced to Care by Evelyn Nakano Glenn. I'm going to draw on her ideas and talk about care work in the US – who does it, how they do it, what the consequences are and what it says about us. 

Feminists use the term “social reproduction” to refer to the non-economic labor that keeps our modern world turning. Unless we're the ones mopping the floors, we tend to ignore the work that makes participating in public life possible: someone has to make the dinner, clean the house, keep the laundry from piling up, etc. This social reproduction work is a lot more equitable than it once was, but women still overwhelmingly bear the burden. More often than not, this means putting in what's been called a “second shift.” That is, after a day of public, paid labor, many women come home to an evening of private, unpaid labor. I grew up in a family organized in such a way and I never gave it a second thought. Care work is often invisible. 

Social reproduction is one type of caring. Another is care for the elderly, disabled and dependent. These populations have increased over the past few decades and have resulted in what's been called a “care deficit.” That is, there are more people in need of care than there are people to comfortably do the work. People who feel obligated to care for their aging parents (or other relatives) are put in a difficult situation as they typically are forced to forgo or neglect some other aspect of their lives. Careers and relationships suffer, dreams get put aside, and everyday life becomes more stressful as the caregiver attempts to juggle multiple roles. This work is also disproportionately done by women. Of course, some people opt to hire caregivers instead of trying to do the work themselves. Unfortunately, it's no secret that care work is low-paid, offers little or no benefits and is disproportionately done by women and racialized minorities.  

These difficulties exist in part because we organize our lives in separate spheres: public and private. In the public sphere people are totally independent and responsible only for themselves. This is also where money is made so it's considered much more important than the private sphere. In the ideal incarnation of the private sphere it's a place of interdependence, love and friendship. This is where care work is done. The private sphere is supposed to be a refuge from the realities of the public sphere; the two are not supposed to intersect or inform one another. Occasionally there is talk about developing policy that would pay women/caregivers or offer some sort of tax incentive for the work they do in the home, but these efforts have obviously been unsuccessful and care work remains invisible and unacknowledged.  

Our unwillingness to acknowledge the contributions of caregivers suggest that we don't value community. A society that values community would not pay its caregivers so little, ignore the importance of their work, or treat its dependents so poorly. In Forced to Care, Glenn lists goals for creating a caring society. To summarize:

• Caring must be recognized as “real” work and as a valid, important contribution.

• People requiring care must be respected and recognized as full members of society.

• Caregivers must have appropriate working conditions and appropriate compensation. 

She also says that in order to achieve these goals we must understand that:

• Caring is a private and public responsibility. Or, a community responsibility.

• Everyone who needs care has a right to it.

• The responsibility of caregiving needs to be equitably shared. 

The author's goals for a caring society sound quite like the various mission statements of intentional communities that I have been reading lately. The question that keeps running through my mind is how we can achieve this level of a compassionate, caring community. I love the idea, but I am not seeing the mechanism. I think that intentional communities might be able to teach us something about caring and compassion, so I intend to learn more about how tasks tend to be assigned in different intentional communities.

Caring and Caregiving: Pathways

I have been learning about intentional communities and, while I’ve found that they can indeed teach us valuable lessons about compassion, they aren’t exactly a practical solution. In search of a more feasible idealism, I returned to Evelyn Nakano Glenn and what she has to say in “Creating a Caring Society.”

Neglecting the needy Elderly

Yesterday I visited my great-grandfather in the assisted living home where he moved nine months ago. He’s 95, and was living on his own, despite macular degeneration and hearing loss, until he was in a car accident last summer. Now, even though he has recovered from his injuries sustained in the accident, life has gotten exponentially more difficult and his quality of life has dropped enormously. Just the act of getting from his wheelchair to a lying down position on his bed drains him almost entirely of energy; his mind is as sharp as ever though, he’s always telling us stories. But life has essentially become a waiting room. Before we left yesterday, after we said goodbye, he broke down, deploring why God was penalizing him making him live like this. He just wanted to go home and see his wife—she passed away five years ago. They were married for over 70 years.  Seeing him like that breaks my heart. 

The Dalai Lama Champions Love and Compassion

On Mother's Day the Dalai Lama came to speak at the University of Minnesota.  Of everything he said, one of the main ideas he wanted to convey was compassion.  Compassion is where inner tranquility comes from according to the Dalai Lama.  Having positive feelings toward others puts the mind at ease and helps to relieve insecurities and fears we have. This will leave us strong and successful. According to the Dalai Lama's website, our own sense of well being comes from none other than caring about the happiness of others.  Mentally, we have control of how happy we are, all we need to do is care about other people and ease their suffering to bring peace to ourselves.  

My most rewarding experience volunteering

The most rewarding volunteering experience i had was teaching Korean language at church. I am from South Korea and came to America about 5 years ago in 2006. I am bilingual of Korean and English currently, and am also Catholic. I used to work with little kids at church and teach them the Korean language. I volunteered at the St. Andrew Kim Catholic church in St. Paul for the past few years. It's the only Korean Catholic church in Minnesota, so i went there with my father after i came to Minnesota. This church provides education for those who don't know how to speak Korean, and i was one of volunteer teachers and assistants.