A Theology of Caregiving | Part 2
Why a Theology of Caregiving?
In Part 1 I introduced my experience with caregiving over the past twenty years or so. Today, I want to look at why we need to develop a personal theology of caregiving.
After years of reorganizing my life around the needs of others, I was railing at God. (Yes, I do that.)
“When is it MY turn?”
I had given up so much of myself over the past twenty years, and in fact, over the past 28 years since I homeschooled our son. I kept trying to be a writer and speaker, but had neither the time nor the bandwidth. I hadn’t been able to manage my ministry well for years.
I had just returned from another annual planning retreat with high hopes for achievable goals when another crisis arose.
“What about me!?!?!?”
I don’t often hear God in a way I know for certain it’s Him.
But this day I did. His words were clear:
“That’s a very arrogant American attitude…”
That’s when I knew I needed a different mindset about caregiving. Indeed, a theology. Where else in the world do people set personal and career goals and expect to meet them? Expect to have the freedom to meet them?
And how did that correspond with the needs of my family and, eventually, my neighbor?
And how did it relate to who I am and want to be as a person, as a Christian?
It was time to give this topic some thought and prayer. In the process, I learned I was not alone.
Demographics
I already knew I was on the front end of the Boomer generation.
What I hadn’t realized was the demographics of this generation and the impact it’s having and will have on our way of life in America.
Born between 1946 and 1964, Boomers are facing:
- an increasing life expectancy,
- half of the women are unmarried,
- a third of Boomers’ children were born out of wedlock,
- millions of adult children live far from their parents.[1]
Even as this generation is increasingly providing care for the very old, the question remains: who will care for us?
Furthermore, our generation has not prepared well financially. Most carry debt and have not saved enough for retirement, much less for long-term care needs. Many of those who tried to prepare lost 40% of their net worth during the 2008 crash, and some are still recovering. Since our generation bore fewer children than our parents, there will be fewer people working to support us through Social Security—assuming it survives.
There is a tsunami coming that few are expecting.
New Designations
Increasingly, we see Boomers caring for more than one person, just as I was. This leads to new designations:
• Sandwich Generation—caring for one or more parents and one or more children. This may include boomerang children—adults who can’t afford to live on their own so have returned home—or grandchildren.
• Club sandwich—caring for three or more generations, which might include one or more parents, one or more children, and one or more grandchildren. We might also call these people overwhelmed.
Countercultural
By themselves, these demographics would be “interesting…”
But here’s where the Lord’s comment to me enters the discussion. Throughout most of history, families have remained in the same geographic area and have been expected to have multi-generational homes to care for those in need.
Americans don’t.
We’re conflicted between the values of freedom and family. And frankly, our generation and those in younger cohorts increasingly choose freedom.
Freedom to move.
Freedom to follow a career.
Freedom to ignore the needs of family and neighbors.
Freedom to have their turn.[2]
Which is why any discussion of family caregiving is countercultural in America today.
Amy Zeittlow points out,
Today’s kids and young adults are exposed to a poisonous ‘culture of narcissism’ that is depriving them of empathy, which in turn threatens the future of caregiving, when millions of aging Boomers will need it.[3]
Indeed, even many of my 50-something friends question why I devote so much time to caregiving. They don’t understand it.
And neither did I until I continued to pray about it even while studying Scripture for answers. One of the words I kept receiving was “countercultural.”
In other words, what I am doing and teaching is not the norm. It won’t be accepted easily. Thus, the need for a theological understanding rather than simply an emotional one.
N.T. Wright talks about living out the “hard decisions and hard actions, choices that run counter to the expectations, aspirations, desires, and instincts with which every human being comes equipped.”[4]
Jesus goes even further in John 13:34:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
We all know how that turned out….
So that’s why each of us needs to develop our own theology of caregiving. We need a theological compass to guide us through the choppy waters and around the ragged shore.
Join me next week as I share the Theology of Caregiving I developed in that season and continue to live by. [Spoiler: it isn’t easy…]