Perhaps
a
dialog
might be developed to reveal the natures of relationship, in
the case when some sort of diversity is problematic.
Examples include various disabilities, and yet sometimes the diversity is genetic. In all of these cases, there are coping mechanisms which attempt to normalize. Normalization to what? What do we as a society regard as normal; Super Bowl hype, Christmas shopping, fighting someone else's war in the Middle East? Care givers deal with two inner realities. First is their own reality and the second is the reality of the other. In some cases the care giver works with more than one other person. As a professor of mathematics, working within a "Learning Support" system, I will have up to 120 individuals next semester whose understanding of basic concepts in mathematics are far from what I might see is ideal. However, the Learning Support system is itself far from what I might see as ideal. Ted is now retired from a life time of civil service in which he managed the disbursement of two to three million dollars of state funding each year to "care givers", in Vermont. Sophie is employed by a city counsel near London England, where she advises the city regarding child custody and child support in cases where care giving is essential. In each case, the social costs to support primary care givers is measured in several dimensions, financial, lost opportunity, private success, or avoidance of harm. |