I've read it twice now, and struggle to review it because my emotions are so mixed. Obviously - well, it's obvious to me - your fundamental point is true. We are all dependent and we should face it, embrace that, incorporate it into our thinking and planning, and stop worshipping the god of autonomy. I am a big fan of the book and am cheerful about reviewing it positively elsewhere. Here, though, I'd like to add some other thoughts.
It is our job as parents to allow and encourage our children become independent of us, and if we haven't, we have failed. I don't think you disagree, I just think that the book doesn't parse the correct need for gaining independence along with its evil twin of worshipping autonomy.
Then there is poverty. During the many graduate student years where I often needed help and rarely could offer any, I came to hate asking for help, even when it was cheerfully offered and given. I didn't want to always be the dependent one. I wanted at least some opportunity to be the giver, and I was thrilled when financial independence finally offered that opportunity. But what of the families, and for that matter, the nations, who see no end to their dependency, and have no other recourse in need except to ask for help, over and over and over and over... They hate it, and the whole thing is not dignified. Could it be? And if so, what has to change? We are required to be generous givers, and also to treat our recipients with dignity. What would be some ways of doing that, without being sickeningly patronizing? And is it possible to be the recipient forever, and still remain dignified? I don't think the misery of permanent recipient status is entirely a bad thing. Or is it?
That leads to another topic for you. International aid. That creates such an ugly dependency (such as thousands of stupid forms and plans that mean nothing except shutting up some rich western donor with an obsession with strategic planning). Can those recipient institutions find dignity in their dependency? What if they know they are only dependent because their leaders are kleptocrats, so that their request for aid is simply "rescue me, because the leader who should rescue me has taken his wife shopping in Paris and spent the entire cost of running my school/parish/family/waterutility."
My other squirming reaction surfaces at the topic of old age, where dependency is not on all fours with the dependency of either children or mothers. The kid at Harvard who asked about professional care for aging parents is a good display of the difference, and he was more right than it may have seemed. Babies have no dignity and don't care who changes their clothes, but elderly do have dignity, and do care who helps them change, shower, and go to the toilet. In this realm, they may prefer a (loving, caring but still an) outsider. Is that a worship of autonomy? Or an ancient human reaction that your kids aren't supposed to see you naked? I will be interested to see the book you write when you are eighty. I think your point will be unchanged, but the details will shift a bit.
In that vein, and to wrap up, I offer you a true family story.
Scene: Granddaughter, age 44, helping bathe Grandmother, age 100, because the normal "outside but beloved" helper has COVID. Granddaughter helps Grandmother strip down and get in the shower. In the middle of the shower, the following conversation occurs:
Grandmother: Now why did you come to visit again?
Granddaughter: To see you, Grandmother!
Grandmother: I bet you didn't expect to see this much of me.
Babies, on the other hand, are cheerful about everyone seeing them without clothes. How many small naked children have set off down the block on a warm summer evening to visit the neighbors? I know several and I bet you do too.
So to close: I'm a fan, for sure. But is there another book or two to write someday?
I have not read the book. I think there is a Christian place for gratefully receiving help as an acceptance of God's will, even indefinitely.
That said, the big exception is toileting. The benefit of professionalism, which is neutral and indifferent in the right way, preserves dignity through privacy. There are people who have learned to cope, but to say no big deal ignores a lot of human experience.
She needs to write a second book talking to people who are squeamish or naturally private with their bodies.
I think there is danger in conflating dignity with pride. There is a humility in asking for, accepting, and receiving help, even and especially when that help comes at a cost to our privacy or rather, our pride. Admitting that we do not have control over nearly as many things as we think we do, up to and including the natural processes that befall us as we age, and asking for help does not make us any less dignified, but maybe a little more humble.
Losing privacy makes some people upset. It cuts deep to the point of physically affecting them. I think "nervous bladder" is a good, mundane example of this. People who are upset need to hear that they can come to a point of coping, with God's grace, perhaps yet to be received. I think if God has someone in that position that He will extend grace to them to cope, but it is not honest to call it a good thing.
I have to bracket these thoughts when I write them to not be nauseous.
You are not wrong, though, I think you've stumbled on another area where both the Church (churches in general) and the greater culture need to put in more effort in helping people become more comfortable in accepting their bodies in all their beauty and limitations - unfortunately, Gnosticism is alive and well in 2025.
I think the key with children is not so much that we teach them dependence on us as parents, but rather we teach and form them to become people who can both rely on others, but also be relied upon - people who can be both dependent upon and dependable to others in their family, their community, etc . Interdependence with the understanding that for many people, there will be, God-willing, many years where they *will* be the one who is depended upon, but they will also have times in their life that they will need to depend on others.
Humility and the admission that we don't, can't, and shouldn't be able to be in control of everything at all times.
I am also struck by the part of your comment where you felt troubled by your inability to return the generosity you received during rough patches until you had financial stability. Perhaps your friends, whom you relied upon, gained something of equal value from your willingness to accept their generosity, as well as your friendship, even absent of your financial ability to repay.
It can be very easy to focus on the "Treasure" part of giving, but "Time" and "Talent" are equally valuable, sometimes more so. Especially in a world where encountering and engaging with one another is so difficult.
As for the last thing - maybe in some idyllic past time, but I think that would be considered pretty shocking today. So much fear about stranger danger, pedophilia, even if not justified.
I'm reading Dignity of Dependence alongside two books on the Church in medieval England (Going to Church in Medieval England, and The Stripping of the Altars) and two books on a Catholic philosophy of education (Beauty for Truth's Sake, and Beauty in the Word) and am finding the juxtaposition thought provoking. Our forefathers would, I think, have been somewhat astonished that we even need to discuss the question of dependency and dignity - to them it was clear that each person had a role and that each role included some dependence and some provision for others and there was dignity inherent in humanness and that all of us depend on the goodness of God.
The other books are looking at what constitutes a humane education if we accept the premise that we are incarnated souls who function as a kind of link between the spiritual and physical aspects of the cosmos. I find that idea of incarnation to resonate strongly with Dignity of Dependence in terms of being finite beings who obviously will need each other and in terms of the function of relating or connecting one thing with another being somehow integral to what it means to be human.
I have added a fair bit of underlining and marginalia to my copy, partly because that's how I read and partly in preparation to passing the book on to my brother (in seminary to become a conservative Presbyterian minister) so he can read and we can discuss.
I've read it twice now, and struggle to review it because my emotions are so mixed. Obviously - well, it's obvious to me - your fundamental point is true. We are all dependent and we should face it, embrace that, incorporate it into our thinking and planning, and stop worshipping the god of autonomy. I am a big fan of the book and am cheerful about reviewing it positively elsewhere. Here, though, I'd like to add some other thoughts.
It is our job as parents to allow and encourage our children become independent of us, and if we haven't, we have failed. I don't think you disagree, I just think that the book doesn't parse the correct need for gaining independence along with its evil twin of worshipping autonomy.
Then there is poverty. During the many graduate student years where I often needed help and rarely could offer any, I came to hate asking for help, even when it was cheerfully offered and given. I didn't want to always be the dependent one. I wanted at least some opportunity to be the giver, and I was thrilled when financial independence finally offered that opportunity. But what of the families, and for that matter, the nations, who see no end to their dependency, and have no other recourse in need except to ask for help, over and over and over and over... They hate it, and the whole thing is not dignified. Could it be? And if so, what has to change? We are required to be generous givers, and also to treat our recipients with dignity. What would be some ways of doing that, without being sickeningly patronizing? And is it possible to be the recipient forever, and still remain dignified? I don't think the misery of permanent recipient status is entirely a bad thing. Or is it?
That leads to another topic for you. International aid. That creates such an ugly dependency (such as thousands of stupid forms and plans that mean nothing except shutting up some rich western donor with an obsession with strategic planning). Can those recipient institutions find dignity in their dependency? What if they know they are only dependent because their leaders are kleptocrats, so that their request for aid is simply "rescue me, because the leader who should rescue me has taken his wife shopping in Paris and spent the entire cost of running my school/parish/family/waterutility."
My other squirming reaction surfaces at the topic of old age, where dependency is not on all fours with the dependency of either children or mothers. The kid at Harvard who asked about professional care for aging parents is a good display of the difference, and he was more right than it may have seemed. Babies have no dignity and don't care who changes their clothes, but elderly do have dignity, and do care who helps them change, shower, and go to the toilet. In this realm, they may prefer a (loving, caring but still an) outsider. Is that a worship of autonomy? Or an ancient human reaction that your kids aren't supposed to see you naked? I will be interested to see the book you write when you are eighty. I think your point will be unchanged, but the details will shift a bit.
In that vein, and to wrap up, I offer you a true family story.
Scene: Granddaughter, age 44, helping bathe Grandmother, age 100, because the normal "outside but beloved" helper has COVID. Granddaughter helps Grandmother strip down and get in the shower. In the middle of the shower, the following conversation occurs:
Grandmother: Now why did you come to visit again?
Granddaughter: To see you, Grandmother!
Grandmother: I bet you didn't expect to see this much of me.
Babies, on the other hand, are cheerful about everyone seeing them without clothes. How many small naked children have set off down the block on a warm summer evening to visit the neighbors? I know several and I bet you do too.
So to close: I'm a fan, for sure. But is there another book or two to write someday?
I have not read the book. I think there is a Christian place for gratefully receiving help as an acceptance of God's will, even indefinitely.
That said, the big exception is toileting. The benefit of professionalism, which is neutral and indifferent in the right way, preserves dignity through privacy. There are people who have learned to cope, but to say no big deal ignores a lot of human experience.
She needs to write a second book talking to people who are squeamish or naturally private with their bodies.
I think there is danger in conflating dignity with pride. There is a humility in asking for, accepting, and receiving help, even and especially when that help comes at a cost to our privacy or rather, our pride. Admitting that we do not have control over nearly as many things as we think we do, up to and including the natural processes that befall us as we age, and asking for help does not make us any less dignified, but maybe a little more humble.
Losing privacy makes some people upset. It cuts deep to the point of physically affecting them. I think "nervous bladder" is a good, mundane example of this. People who are upset need to hear that they can come to a point of coping, with God's grace, perhaps yet to be received. I think if God has someone in that position that He will extend grace to them to cope, but it is not honest to call it a good thing.
I have to bracket these thoughts when I write them to not be nauseous.
You are not wrong, though, I think you've stumbled on another area where both the Church (churches in general) and the greater culture need to put in more effort in helping people become more comfortable in accepting their bodies in all their beauty and limitations - unfortunately, Gnosticism is alive and well in 2025.
I think the key with children is not so much that we teach them dependence on us as parents, but rather we teach and form them to become people who can both rely on others, but also be relied upon - people who can be both dependent upon and dependable to others in their family, their community, etc . Interdependence with the understanding that for many people, there will be, God-willing, many years where they *will* be the one who is depended upon, but they will also have times in their life that they will need to depend on others.
Humility and the admission that we don't, can't, and shouldn't be able to be in control of everything at all times.
I am also struck by the part of your comment where you felt troubled by your inability to return the generosity you received during rough patches until you had financial stability. Perhaps your friends, whom you relied upon, gained something of equal value from your willingness to accept their generosity, as well as your friendship, even absent of your financial ability to repay.
It can be very easy to focus on the "Treasure" part of giving, but "Time" and "Talent" are equally valuable, sometimes more so. Especially in a world where encountering and engaging with one another is so difficult.
As for the last thing - maybe in some idyllic past time, but I think that would be considered pretty shocking today. So much fear about stranger danger, pedophilia, even if not justified.
I'm reading Dignity of Dependence alongside two books on the Church in medieval England (Going to Church in Medieval England, and The Stripping of the Altars) and two books on a Catholic philosophy of education (Beauty for Truth's Sake, and Beauty in the Word) and am finding the juxtaposition thought provoking. Our forefathers would, I think, have been somewhat astonished that we even need to discuss the question of dependency and dignity - to them it was clear that each person had a role and that each role included some dependence and some provision for others and there was dignity inherent in humanness and that all of us depend on the goodness of God.
The other books are looking at what constitutes a humane education if we accept the premise that we are incarnated souls who function as a kind of link between the spiritual and physical aspects of the cosmos. I find that idea of incarnation to resonate strongly with Dignity of Dependence in terms of being finite beings who obviously will need each other and in terms of the function of relating or connecting one thing with another being somehow integral to what it means to be human.
I have added a fair bit of underlining and marginalia to my copy, partly because that's how I read and partly in preparation to passing the book on to my brother (in seminary to become a conservative Presbyterian minister) so he can read and we can discuss.