It took me a lot of life experience before I started to internalize the idea that care was something people are entitled to. I was raised in a way that made me ashamed and embarrassed for needing any help or care, and by a family that also gave me age inappropriate responsibilities to provide care. By the time I got to be independent, I looked at anyone who needed help to get by with disgust. I had learned to suppress my own needs and go without care, so I resented anyone else who couldn’t. When someone did make their needs known, I would fly into a defensive panic because I thought that they were going to try and force me to be responsible for them, just like others had. It kept me isolated, fearful, and denying myself valuable relationships along with the physical care I actually needed.
I know I’m not alone in that panicked defensiveness and bitter resentment. I see it in all the red tape and means testing I have to go through to access any services for my son, because people would rather add months of work and millions of dollars in salaries to prevent somebody somewhere from getting a little more money then they deserve. I see it in the generation battles as older generations resent younger people getting opportunities, freedom, and care that they never got. I see how people react to the simplest of disability accommodations as if any request is the same as fraud. We are taught to view visible care needs as a failure.
But in reality, care is something human beings need to survive, and it is something we can’t provide for ourselves alone. We are built to need each other.
We enter this world blind, helpless, and unaware. We learn to make sense of our perceptions by believing the people around us and what they reflect back to us. We stay helpless for years and years. We’ll get sick and be rendered temporarily helpless. We’ll get injured and need help. We’ll give birth or go through other body changes that require care. If we’re lucky we’ll get to age and need more help then. And then eventually we’ll die and need more help at that stage. Needing help is actually what is normal for the human experience. Any independence we might achieve is guaranteed to be temporary.
A birthright is a moral right possessed by everyone. It is something we are entitled to by virtue of our birth. And as human beings our birth entitles us to care.
Care is not an indulgence, it is an entitlement. It is not selfish, it is self respect.
Care is a human right. We didn’t choose to be born and so we deserve to be cared for by the community that made that choice. Humans are dependent for a very very long time compared to other creatures. That is part of our human nature that deserves to be respected. Our physical reality is that we are wired to depend on each other. We need touch, we need care, we deserve a world where those needs are met.
In America as it is right now, we have to earn care. Some of us are trapped in exploitative jobs because it is the only way to get health care. Many of us can’t afford health care at all so we’re either suffering or crossing our fingers and hoping our luck will hold. But even beyond health care, even just having our needs considered and being treated with basic dignity has to be earned.
Many of us are taught that we have to earn our care by not “being a burden”, doing everything ourselves, not asking for help, minimizing our needs, and then begging forgiveness for any aspect of our needs that stays visible. All of this is fundamentally dehumanizing.
Who benefits from this dehumanization? Who benefits from us being so ashamed of our needs that we will suppress them? It certainly isn’t us. It is all the systems of Power that make money and status off of us. And if they convince us that human needs are a personal failing, it makes us much more exploitable. We will line up for the privilege of being exploited as we tell ourselves how much more dedicated and disciplined we are than our peers.
We can’t solve these kinds of problems on our own. Self care is not enough. We require community care, and we require the opportunity to provide care.
This is often a shocking concept to those of us unacquainted with collectivist cultures, but it is true. You don’t just have a need to be cared for, you have a need to give care. Not having an opportunity to care for someone is what creates the loneliness that threatens to drown us all like pudding. Providing care for others is what will create the sense of love and belonging that each of our bodies are programmed to prioritize.
In my singing class one day I was talking with my coach and friend Emily about some of the messages I had internalized that fed in to a terrible case of stage fright and I said something about shame being the birthright I inherited. Emily said, “Well, isn’t your body also your birthright? And your body was built to sing.”
My body is my birthright. It’s what I have inherited by virtue of my birth. Like all bodies, it requires extensive care. Care is our birthright.