The caring response

David Austin and William Halpin

"In the sense in which a man can ever be said to be at home in the world, he is at home not through dominating, or explaining, or appreciating, but through caring and being cared for." (Mayeroff, 1971, p.2.)

"But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.” (St. Luke, 10, 33).

The core of child care is the caring relationship between care-giver and child. The assumption is that in the working out of this relationship, a healing, developmental process emerges. It is further assumed that this process should occur normally in the family setting, and that children and other persons who come into care do so because either their family cannot care for them, or because there is a breakdown of care.

Given this, it is of the highest importance to be able to define what care is, what care is not, and beyond that, what the circumstances are which evoke the caring response.

Caring
First we need to draw a distinction between the noun and the verb. We can say we “care" about many things and persons: we “care" whether the Yankees win, we “care" about what happens to our parents, we “care" for our dog, we “care" whether or not we put on weight. In this article, we are not using “care" in this sense. The fact that we “care" about the Yankees does not assist them to win a game. We wish to emphasize the active, as opposed to the passive, form of the word. In “caring" for someone or something (a plant for instance), we are saying that we are doing something (acting) so that persons or things are aided in their developmental process.

In addition to focussing on action (act plus meaning), caring is always an action carried out by one subject being in regard to another subject being. To the extent that a person treats another person like an object, there is no caring. Modern medicine, for instance, is often viewed as uncaring in the sense that patients are treated as objects and not as subjects (persons); for example, a patient may be referred to as the colostomy in room 202. Hospitals may provide care but not caring.

Caring and emotional involvement are not the same. Emotional involvement indicates an affective state which goes beyond caring to a position where the person involved becomes like the whole world. Lovers, for instance, may be said to be emotionally involved, sometimes presumably to the exclusion of judgment. Caring does not require emotional involvement or love, but rather identification with the other as a valued subject being who is important to us.

The Caring Response
It is clear to us that the caring response is not an instinctual reaction to the need of another. Throughout history, the needs of others have frequently been ignored. In the field of Child Care (which should in our argument be called the field of Child Caring), it is important to know under what conditions the caring response is elicited. Child Care is based on caring. While technical know-how may be useful, it only assists in the main process.

We need to hire staff who are capable of acting in a caring way towards the children in their care. We do not need staff who treat children as objects to be organized, although this is a skill which may be of value in some group settings.

Let us therefore make an attempt at listing the conditions under which the caring response will be elicited:

The other must be valued. If the other is not valued, there is no caring. In order to kill another, for instance, the other must be seen as “valueless." If the other is characterized as different, inferior, less than human, then killing him becomes easier. This occurs most frequently in war, where enemies are always described as being other than human beings like ourselves. In other words, they are devalued. If fetuses are to be aborted, they must be described as being less than human. If any persons are to be cared for, they must be viewed as being human.
The other must be viewed as a subject. If the other is viewed as an object, caring is diminished. When the surgeon cuts into a body he must be careful, but he need not be caring. But for a person to heal completely, both physically and psychologically, someone must be caring.
The other must be seen as needing caring. If there is no need, there is no caring. To the extent that the goal of child caring is autonomy of the child, the goal contains the release from caring (and the ability to express caring for others).
The caring person must have the strength to care. Caring takes energy, because it means investing oneself in the other.
The caring person must respect the authenticity of the other, rather than imposing his or her view of what the other should be.
The caring action must be sufficient in itself and must not be done for any hope of reward in this life or the next.
Caring involves knowledge of oneself and of the other. One has to be secure to reach out to another.
Caring involves knowledge that is direct, because the experience is of another subject existing in the same world of being.
Caring is non-judgmental. Other persons are experienced as individuals. Caring reaches out to everyone, not just those people who are deemed worthy or similar.
Caring involves the assumption that the other can be helped, but it does not assume that the other will be helped. The caring person acts without thought of the outcome of the act.
Caring is not fearful. The caring person will not cease caring because the child has AIDS and bites. These attributes may make the caring person take some protective steps, but they do not reduce the caring.
The caring person is prepared to adapt to the needs of the person being cared for if that is necessary.
The caring response is part of the person and fills out the way the person interacts with the world: it is not something that can be switched on and off. It is a basic mode of being, a basic component of the person.
The caring person is available to the other who needs him or her.

Caring involves a complex set of elements, some of which are located in the caring person, and some of which are located in the situation.

Caring in the Person
We do not think that persons are born caring or uncaring, as they are born with fair or dark hair. We would argue that caring is a potential in every human being, and that some persons develop this potential and others do not. Clearly, when we hire child care workers, we would prefer to hire persons who are caring, and we need to consider ways in which we can evaluate this dimension. An interesting question is whether caring can be developed in an adult who is not caring. While we would like to think that this is possible, we are inclined to think that most persons have developed consistent patterns of interaction with other human beings by the time they reach adulthood, and the conservative assumption would be that caring child care workers are developed, not made, long before they appear before us looking for a job.

What produces caring in one person and not in another? Our experience would seem to indicate that being cared for is the best predictor. Abused children do not grow up to be caring adults. Neglected children do not grow up to be caring adults. There seems to be no such thing as a “biologically-wired" caring response, even between mothers and their children, anymore than there is a “biologically-wired" aggressive response. Historically, Germany was one of the most benign countries of all to house Jews. It did not help.

Caring in Interaction
We assume, therefore, that caring is a learned response, learned through interacting with significant others during the developmental years. What is there about human interaction experience which leads some to caring, but seemingly, most to indifference? The following factors would seem to be relevant:

The Western world (including the Communist part of the world) is structured in a basically selfish manner. All schooling is competitive in form, with “doing better than others" the criterion of excellence. Children are judged, if not formed, by the wealth and status (competitive edge) of their family of origin. In order to win, one has to beat others. The aim in America, far from being equality, is superiority. One can only get ahead by ignoring the needs of others. Life is a market.
The world is constantly at war. Apart from major conflicts like World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, there have been continuous smaller engagements. Inevitably, wars create a climate of aggression and hostility, buttressed by the usual claims to freedom and tolerance.
The news media, whether visual, print, or sound, accent negative events almost to the exclusion of positive events. The headlines often speak of murder, crimes, dishonesty, fires, death and accidents.
There is constant extreme poverty even in wealthy nations like the United States, which seems to persist despite the superficial efforts made to end it. Selfishness is endemic. Quite clearly over time, the “haves" become richer and the “have nots" stay where they are. In fact, recent data would seem to indicate the emergence of an underclass.
The accent on technology may be seen everywhere, from methods of milking cows to feeding babies. The connection with caring is difficult to document, but technology is clearly a separating phenomenon, and anything that separates reduces caring.

Promoting Caring
If we are to promote caring, it would seem logical to support the following activities, both on an individual and social level:

All people must be valued. There must be no sense in which one person is valued as a person more than another. This does not mean that all persons are equal, but that all persons are equally valued.
We must learn to involve, not exclude. We must learn to invite, not reject. We must learn to share, not restrict. We must learn to respect differences, not despise them.
We must learn that the fact that people have different skills and talents does not mean that we should value them differently as people. We must learn not to confuse “earnings" with value; this is probably the most difficult thing for anyone to learn.
We must expose people to caring activities as they grow. There seems to be an assumption that caring is a family activity, but caring within the family is still restrictive and exclusive; we need to expose people to caring for others, to working with those less fortunate than themselves.
We, as a society, and as a community, must value caring. We must value those who actively care for others, whether these are nursing-home aides, child care workers, or physicians. We must value the activity of caring, and not judge the activity by the object of that caring. We must value persons who care for the disabled, the blind, the mentally retarded, the delinquent, just as much as we value those who care for the physically sick.
We should not expect caring to be earned. We do not expect our natural children to “earn" our love. We should not expect others to “earn" our caring. We give our caring to others because we are caring, and we share a common humanity. If we hit another, we may expect to be hit back. If we act caringly to another, we may expect to receive caring in return.
Caring must somehow be brought into the mainstream of our lives and our society. At the present time, caring activity seems to be restricted to what we might call oases of caring in a sea of indifference. Caring should have a central place in our schools. It is just as important as, and arguably more important, than English, history, mathematics, and other basic subjects. Students should spend time caring, just as they spend time studying and playing games. The propensity to caring should be encouraged; the propensity to indifference should be discouraged.

This feature: Journal of Child and Youth Care, Volume 4 Number 3, Pages 1 to 7