MOTHERING AND CAREGIVING.
Support. No greater transition is there encountered in adult life than the one into and through caregiving and parenting. It reveals what has been apparent in us all along, that has humans we are vulnerable, and that during our most tender moments support is vital and vitalising. As journalist Jia Tolenio wrote in an article for the New Yorker. “Maybe I eventually should write about caregiving, how I can only care for her because I’m being cared for, how we have to make of ourselves and our situations a soft place for others to land.”-
Through support, we relay care- a sense of togetherness, of connection.
Cultivating connection is an art, that faces hurdles, yet not impossibilities in modern times.
In her book “Daring Greatly” Brene Brown explores how cultivating connections requires us to embrace the vulnerability that our cultural and social ideals tend to encourage we shield.
Capitalism and the heirachial structures that we have been raised in that have instilled within us a quest for individualism and authoritarianism, which has been the antithesis to inclusion and collaboration. It fosters it’s opposite- disengagement and competition. Competition; whilst not always negative- it can offer motivation and opportunities for growth- does not provide nourishment or care. And in our most tender moments- in our own experiences of caregiving, care and support is what restores.
Our current social contexts and cultural ideals and practices can make accessing care and support a challenge. Often our communities have been dispersed, frequently we live far away from families or familiar friends. We also inhabit a presentational culture, one that values composure and control over the unresolved or the uncertain. And one where specialities- that separate body and mind, and ourselves from each other and our children- predominate.
What is acutely experienced in caregiving is that it’s an experience of interconnected totality, one of grappling and one of uncertainty. It changes how we relate to ourselves and each other.
It brings deeply into question- what is support and what does it look like, and feel like?? How do we offer it to ourselves; and where possible each other?
By Helen Coutts
24. November.2025.
References and Further Reading.
Brown Brene, 2012, Daring Greatly. How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead, Penguin Publishing, USA.
Tolentino J, May 2022, ‘Can Motherhood Be a Mode of Rebellion?’ The Newyorker, cited online feb 2023,
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-motherhood-be-a-mode-of-rebellion
