CREATED TO CARE

Human beings have many needs, such as air, food, safety, on which their survival depends. Care is an equally important need, perhaps more important. Care is acknowledging that the other person is valuable and therefore needs to be looked after and provided for their needs which are necessary for their wellbeing and growth. Care is feeling a deep concern and interest in the other. To give and receive care is in the DNA of human beings (of course, which can be hampered). Kristin Neff, a well known American researcher, says, “that the capacity to feel affection and interconnection is part of our biological nature. Our brains are actually designed to care”.

            The well-known psychologist Harry Harlow was one of the first to examine the development of care and attachment in the mammalian system back in the 1950s. Harlow studied the behaviour of newborn rhesus monkeys who were separated from their mothers and reared alone in a cage. The question was whether the baby monkeys would spend more time with a soft, terrycloth pretend mother—who at least offered some degree of warmth and comfort—or a stark, wire-mesh figure that held a milk-dispensing bottle but provided little comfort. The answer was clear. The baby monkeys clung to their cloth mommies as if their life depended on it, only moving to the stark wire-mesh figures long enough to take a quick drink. What’s striking about this finding is that the emotional comfort offered by a snuggly cloth appeared to create a stronger drive in the monkeys than the food itself. Care was as powerful a survival need as nutrition. 

Human experience shows that the insights derived from the above experiment are also true for human beings. When a child is in distress it runs to his or her parents looking for care. Doesn’t a child stop crying in the hug of her mother, even when they are hurt? Not only children but adults too seek care in their relationships. The experience of care offers individuals courage, hope, and a soothing balm when they feel abandoned, down, and hurt. Care brings healing to the broken hearts and devastated spirits. When people feel uncared, they often resort to unhealthy behaviours and in fact end their lives. Therefore the Bible says, “Man cannot live by bread alone.” Caring for one another is in our biology; our survival depends on it. There is an invitation for each one of us to develop the gift of care and harness the positive energy available in this great gift for we are created to care. 

 

Notes

1.Kristin Neff (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.  

2. Mathew 4:4