I was recently at a party where I talked to a single mother about creating supportive community. As a volunteer fire fighter, she gets called out at all hours. She asked a couple of neighbors if they’d watch her son when she had to fight a fire. All went well for the first two fires, then her neighbors complained that ten at night was too late for her to pick him up. She was upset because here she was, risking her life for neighbors in trouble and these folks griped about a late night.
In a similar vein, another woman recounted an incident in which she asked a close friend to look in on her mother, who suffered from dementia. The visit would take a half an hour, tops, but the friend refused. A decade ago, I’d have been quick to criticize the refusniks for not pitching in. Now, I see the problem as inadequate communication.
In the case of the dementia sufferer, my friend was too shocked to ask her pal why she didn’t want to help. Was the friend afraid there’d be an emergency on her watch? Was she concerned the elderly woman would require restraint or even be violent? Did she suspect the half hour would morph into five?
In the fire fighter’s example, one might wonder if the mother could have helped the fire department in ways that gave her a more predictable schedule, such as during school hours. Motherhood was job one, after all.
And then, there’s the issue of vague requests. It’s essential, in any volunteer request, to make finite asks. We’ve all suffered from overly elastic job descriptions that end up being full time unpaid servitude. There is no surer recipe for burnout.
But bringing up these details requires mutual trust. You’re airing concerns that are normally kept under wraps.
It also requires a basic assumption of what the French call “Le courage de nos differences”, literally, the courage of our difference. Acknowledging that we are all different gives us the basis to factor differing needs into our arrangements.
A generation ago, we presumed our communities were homogeneous - from religious outlooks to schedules. Since most families never resembled the generic American ideal, perhaps we should celebrate our diversity and go on from there.
