I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Friday Flash, I share an epiphany or aha moment from the past week.
I’m just back from accompanying my older daughter Arden1 on her cross-country road trip as she moves her life from the San Francisco Bay Area to Atlanta. She’s moving because she got a new job with her employer, but more important, she’s moving to live near her boyfriend so they can see if they want to be together long term.
Unfortunately, Arden’s father Mark2 wasn’t available to join for any of the trip. His girlfriend was having surgery and he wanted to be there for her recovery. He didn’t say what kind of surgery or why no one else could be there to support her. Later in the week, he had a client meeting already scheduled that apparently he didn’t want to miss. Arden was upset that he couldn’t or wouldn’t join her, and I was as well disappointed, because of her distress, but also because it put a heavier burden of responsibility on me.
Mark insisted that (1) Arden hadn’t given him enough time to make plans and (2) he shouldn’t need to change his plans for her as her trip was something she could handle herself. She felt concerned for her safety as a young woman traveling alone long distances. She was eager to get her new life started, and she had a start date of September 2nd at her new job, so she didn’t want to postpone the trip. She would have enjoyed his companionship and the opportunity to connect during long hours of driving, had he made himself available.
Was Mark right or wrong to skip the trip? What was the moral thing to do?
Psychologist Carol Gilligan proposed that female moral development looks different from male, and perhaps Mark and I showed the differences.
Gilligan said there are two kinds of moral voices: the masculine and the feminine. In Gilligan’s theory, the masculine moral voice is logical and individualistic and emphasizes protecting people’s rights and making sure fairness and justice is upheld. The feminine voice places more emphasis on protecting interpersonal relationships and taking care of other people. It focuses on the “care perspective”: focusing on the needs of the individual in making ethical decisions.
Gilligan worked with psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, who had developed a theory of stages of moral development. Kohlberg emphasized the ideal of justice and fairness, while Gilligan emphasized the importance of care.
You can see in my decisionmaking compared to Mark’s the feminine moral voice and masculine voice in contrast.
I didn’t have to change anything to show up for Arden, although I did need to put my art and writing aside and I did take a longer trip than I otherwise would have. I also skipped an art show reception that was important to me.
Mark argued that it wasn’t fair or right for him to have to change his already-made plans. Her need for care didn’t come into his calculus seemingly at all.
Philosopher Nel Noddings goes further than Gilligan with a relational ethics grounded in the feminine perspective. Noddings suggests three requirements for caring:
- The carer (the one-caring) must exhibit engrossment — thinking about someone so as to gain a greater understanding of them
- The one-caring must also show motivational displacement — their behavior is largely determined by the needs of the person for whom he or she is caring
- The person who is cared for (the cared-for) must respond in some way to the caring with recognition, so that the caring is completed in the other.
Mark didn’t exhibit engrossment. When Arden expressed her disappointment to him that he wouldn’t join her, he said, “it’s not like you’re getting married,” dismissing her sense that this road trip was an important, once-in-a-lifetime happening. When she complained to me about his unwillingness to join, I told her, “I think he just doesn’t understand how significant it is to you, and how much his participation in it would mean to you.”
Mark didn’t do any motivational displacement. He didn’t change a thing to support her. He didn’t ask if his girlfriend could find other help, or change her surgery date (granted it may have been scheduled a long time ago!) He didn’t try to change his client meeting or even just cancel it, prioritizing his daughter’s needs, telling the client, “I’m really sorry, but my daughter needs me right now.”
Contrast that to my decision-making (not to build myself up, but to understand Noddings’ theory better). I understood how important this trip was to Arden. I skipped an important art show reception in order to make it to California on the day she wanted to leave. I put my art and writing aside for five days. I spent longer in the car than I really wanted, knowing it was important to her. My boyfriend and I had talked about his coming to pick me up in Santa Fe on Tuesday while Arden continued on. But as she had no one else lined up to continue with her, we cancelled that plan. I continued on with her to Oklahoma City.
Finally, my act of caring was completed, to use Noddings’ framing. Arden acknowledged how much my participation in the trip meant to her. She felt the care and responded to it with gratitude. There was no aspect of transaction; it was an exchange of attention and presence.
I’ve been experiencing care of the Noddings sort in my relationship with my boyfriend Ray. He took me to the airport so I could fly to Bakersfield, California then picked me up when I returned from Oklahoma City. He took care of my dog and my cats while I was gone.
Then, yesterday afternoon, instead of working on his fence, a project he’s eager to get done, he spent time going grocery shopping, making a salad, and cleaning his house, in preparation for my coming over for dinner. He showed engrossment in my needs: he recognized I could really use some care myself and some healthy food after living on convenience store and truck stop grab-and-gos for days. He showed motivational displacement: he put his fence-making aside to focus on serving my needs. The caring exchange was completed, when I felt his attention, responded to it, and took it in.
I spent time on the road trip pondering caring and what it looks like in my life, particularly in my family of origin. I’ve seen that people sometimes mistake gifts or money for care, and provide in ways that don’t acknowledge what someone truly needs versus what they want to give. That kind of help can feel more like something intended (even unconsciously) to build up the giver rather than support the receiver.
And I thought about how fulfilling caring can be. I’ve learned that best in my relationships with my children where I like to think that I’ve mostly shown up in ways that are truly caring, in the sense Noddings outlined. I also want to demonstrate it more in my other relationships, in my partnership with Ray, in relationship with my parents and sisters, and with my close friends.