The American culture of caring: An overview of beliefs and practices
Otto O von Mering
Centre for Gerontologic Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, Gainsville FL, Unites States of America
PP: 181 - 191
Abstract
As anthropologists, we learn that 'it is through language that members of society organize, describe and account for the everyday world they experience' (Boden & Bielby 1983: 31). It is proposed that caregiving, like language is 'both a primary medium of social interaction and a primary mode for describing (and defining) interaction' (Boden & Bielby, p.31). For humankind, giving care and language are both universal life-giving experiences. Together, they comprise distinct strategies for producing and interpreting speech and action (Coupland, Coupland, Giles & Henwood 1988).
Hence it is reasonable to inquire into the nature of a society on the basis of its characteristic ways of caregiving throughout the life course. As students of contemporary nation cultures like the USA, we note, for example, a 'dominant cultural penchant for using chronological age markers to identify the social performances of young and old,' all in the face of 'today's rising bio-social fact of extended personal longevity' (von Mering 1991: 12). Accordingly, a majority of young, midlife, and old people have come to live in 'different subcultures with distinct self and other-identities, aspirations, beliefs, and life circumstances' (Coupland et al 1988: 6). In the USA in particular, the teens and old age are seen as 'terminal problem cultures' which call for consonant caregiving attitudes and practices (Hill, von Mering & Guillette 1995).
Once we recognise that the giving of care is a fundamental cultural way of communicating, we can speak of caring as an indicator of behaviour which characterises every culture, and varies from culture to culture. We can observe it as an iterative and diurnal 'discourse' between people, with people, and for people in every society.
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