Ellen Langer seems intelligent and an original thinker. No surprise, since she is a professor of psychology at Harvard. She has done some interesting experiments on psychology and aging. For instance, she gave some potted plants to some nursing home residents. Some of the residents were told that the home staff would care for the plants while others were told that they themselves were responsible for the plants. Those responsible for caring fared better on several basic and important variables of life over subsequent months. Work and related thoughts on this subject are discussed in her book, Counterclockwise.
Being responsible for the care of another is a big part of being a parent and even more so for the mother. Caring for a pet has been part of prison programs. Care of various kinds is much on the mind of senior citizens who see friends and relatives at a point where they need help, from walking, eating and showering to dealing with bills, scams, property and taxes. The most unusual book on caring I have ever seen is Prof. Nel Nodding's "Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education." My wife introduced me to this book, which was part of her graduate school reading. Many people are deeply dislike the book, which they find boring and cold.
Prof. Noddings is a retired professor of education at Stanford, and like Prof. Ellen Langer, also an original thinker. (Personally, I find it significant that she was a high school math teacher and has 10 children. So she isn't just armchair theorist.)
Much of the response to her Caring book and subsequent work in that area, has been pictured against a background of child care or of traditional marriage. But as a senior myself and one who has had enough contact with nursing homes, their residents and the lives of those who are bed-ridden and incapacitated, her abstract thinking of a theory of caring is helpful to read. When I asked my wife, who cared deeply and simultaneously for her aging and declining mother and for our mentally ill, deluded, frightened, and bitter daughter, if she sometimes found it difficult to muster the motivation to care for both, she honestly said that her most common difficulty was wondering if she cared well enough, skillfully enough, deeply enough. I have heard similar statements from other intelligent, self-aware women and I believe them.
I imagine that generations of intelligent women have had moments of strong impatience with men applying their strength of mind and insight to questions of physics and macroeconomics all the while being sustained by the care and cooking of a woman who cares.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
