My wife’s debilitating illness has given me a front row seat to a profound gender dynamic. A dynamic that informs today’s mostly mindless discussion of masculinity.
First, even before we dive in, let me muddy the water a little. Some men, albeit small in number, are superseding the ways males are typically raised.
Cases in point. When we moved into the new crib 11 months ago, Travis, unannounced, showed up with dinner for us on the first, exhausting night. A few weeks ago, Michael dropped in with (amazing) carrot cake and two loaves of Wagner’s (amazing) cinnamon bread. Allen (okay, sure with Patty’s help) baked dinners and drove over hill and valley to lighten our fall when I was teaching. Brian fills Lynn’s hummingbird feeder and repairs her recumbent.
National Public Radio ran on oddly common story on it’s website last week about a dying woman who needed lots of home care. A female friend of the woman ended up singlehandedly providing most of it until the very end.
I would’ve placed the odds of the woman’s key caregiver being female at 95%.
Almost exclusively, my wife’s female friends have taken action. The men in our orbit, on the other hand, have almost always offered sympathetic words. One close male friend recently sent me an email in which he said, “Let me know if I can do anything to help.” That, as it turns out, is the male default. It’s safe. A way to maintain distance. A sure-fire way to not be too bothered.
To my “one close male friend” who I hope isn’t going to read this, I need so much help I don’t even know how to start articulating it.
Most women, in my recent experience, don’t wait around for a guidebook on how to help, content not to receive it. Instead, a larger proportion of them move towards people in need.
Joan heard Lynn say she wasn’t enamored with the industrial gray plasticware I purchased on-line for her. So she showed up one day with much spiffier tumblers. Vivian routinely shows up unannounced with soup and gets down on her knees and huddles with Lynn when her body shuts down. She doesn’t really bother to email or text, she just appears at the door.
I watch Little Chris during one of her regular visits and tell her, “Man, you are so skilled and comfortable at meeting Lynn exactly where she is. It’s a beautiful thing.” She proceeds to tell me that when she was in high school, she cared for a housebound woman every day after school for a few years. And how formative that experience was. I don’t know if Little Chris had a brother of similar age, but if she had, I’m 95% sure her parents would not have suggested him for the job.
We expect girls and women to be nurturing as if they’re somehow uniquely built for it. We give boys and men a pass in the form of exceedingly low expectations. And so most males don’t develop that wonderful female instinct to act. Not to wait to be told how to help, just to show up. To look ailing people in the eyes. To hold their hands. To help them get undressed and dressed. To feed them. To console them. Until the end.
More men will be more hands-on caregivers when we expect boys to be more nurturing. Absent that expectation, women will continue do the vast majority of kind-hearted caregiving.
Pressing Pause 