Because We Care

When my team is working on a strategic plan with a client, we typically start with a process called "Formation".

I use that term because whether the organization has been established for 6 months or 60 years, the strategic plan represents an opportunity to imagine something new and different, and nurture it to life through strategic actions.

During the formation process, we facilitate activities and conversations to uncover purpose - why does this organization exist? Once we settle on the answer to this question, we can move through the rest of the strategic plan with a solid tether: does this priority, goal, or strategy reflect our purpose, our reason for existing?

I recently found myself in such a session with a Kansas City-based client that provides direct aid to local residents. We asked the group to do the Nine Whys exercise, interrogating the core reasons that they do their work. Each time they came up with a reason, they had to excavate it more and more, asking "Why is that important?" up to nine times to get to the heart of the matter. The strategic planning committee split into small groups, did the exercise, then each presented back to the larger group.

"We Care" was the top why for one of the groups that presented.

Such a simple and powerful expression: that we do what we do because we care about the people we do it for. Even though I did ask them to go deeper (a worthwhile expedition, ultimately), seeing care at the top of the list certainly struck a resonant chord with me.

Perhaps it's because this strategic planning meeting happened at a time when the concept of care was becoming fully apparent to me, in all of its dimensions.

My Mother died at the end of March. In the time surrounding her death, I became one of her caregivers. This is not a new role to me; becoming a mother is a crash course in giving care, especially in the early days when the "not parent-to-parent" transition feels unrelenting, unpredictable, and bursting with complex feelings.

But caring for my precious Mom revealed a truth that I need you to hear: we are likely to spend the majority of our lives caring for others or being cared for by others.

If we are lucky, we are well-cared for, and we find purpose in giving care to others.

Care is a bridge. Those living without care must try to survive the torrential path between those two inevitable portals: birth and death.

And that path is becoming increasingly more tenuous and dangerous as polycrisis threatens the survival of our very precious planet and entire peoples throughout the world. Without care, generations fail to thrive.

This is heavy on my mind as I am working on a project related to addressing childhood trauma, a vocation that is deeply important and personal to me, not least of all because it was also part of my Mom's life work. She was a well-known and respected advocate for children and families, especially those families burdened by poverty. From her time as a Kindergarten teacher to her role as a Professor of Early Childhood Education to her incredible work of mothering me and my brothers - she was magnificent. And she taught me a lot about how to understand childhood trauma from a range of perspectives, which I am so grateful for.

One of those perspectives is reiterated in what I understand to be an African proverb that says "A child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth".

We are born with a drive to survive. And when we are completely vulnerable - whether we are a newborn baby or a refugee or a disabled person or a dying one - all we want is to know that we are safe. Cared for.

And sometimes we will do anything in our ability to get that assurance, including engaging in harmful thoughts, behaviors, and actions. I recommend "What Happened To You?" by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey for a very accessible dialogue on this absolutely critical perspective. But for now, I just want to state what I hope you already know:

At some point (likely many points) in our life, we all will seek the warm assurance of care, or be asked to give it.

I've been sharing a lot of Letitia Nieto's work again recently when facilitating anti-racism work with my clents. I can't recommend this work enough; it is brilliant. There is a section where Nieto talks about the survival skills that "Targets" (people with "undervalued" social identities such as people of color, people with disabilities, poor or working-class people, LGBTQ+ people, and elderly adults) must develop in order to survive in a world designed, built, and run by "Agents" (people with "overvalued" social identities such as white people, men, and those with financial wealth).

I'm always struck by the part where Nieto says this:

“Everyone gets practice in Target Survival skills, because everyone has been a child, and all children are age Targets.”

This is fundamental to why I care about children, and the families that raise children, and the villages that embrace children.

Because every child deserves a bridge over the troubled waters that roar through this world.

A recent essay by Curtis Ogden on the Network Weaver blog points out that:

"Increasingly, this sense of care and caring (along with reckoning and making amends) is showing up as a crucial factor in making the work of complex collaborative... change happen."

It is our job, then - all of us architects of the future, shapers of systems and culture, neighbors, kin, and friends - to make care a principle and practice and first order of business.

In a recent focus group for the addressing childhood trauma project, one of the participants shared her experience as a medical assistant working in a clinic. She insists on making care the highest priority of her job, often spending 30 minutes or more with patients to listen to them, refer them to resources, and be a loving presence. Her commitment to care puts her in dynamic tension with her workplace, where they have a "get 'em in, get 'em out" mentality around seeing patients. Her call to her colleagues in health care resonated with me deeply: "It should not be out of scope for you to care".

The future we imagine does not exist without care. Sure, we reform broken systems, dream new worlds into being, and take meaningful action. Indeed, that’s what we leaders in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors hang our hats on - the desire for a different kind of future for the people and causes we serve.

But I am certain that, without care, each of these pursuits will fail the Earth and its people. We must approach reform, imagination, and action as we do a newborn baby or a dying Mother. Care is the bridge between life and death. We are the bridge-makers and the guides.

Choosing What You Want Most