A friend recently told me that he was trying to help a woman who had cared for him during his childhood and youth with some medical studies, and that today he had to have an operation.
In the course of the conversation, I was struck by both his deep gratitude and the doubt that a friend had installed, questioning his support: why are you buying this problem?
This made me think of many stories of older people who feel that their adult children, with the difficulties of such intimate human relationships, and Oedipus complexes through, feel that there is something that does not return from what is given, from affection and even that, in certain moments, a feeling of becoming a weight for the other appears.
I am not referring to the morality of good and self-sacrificing parents and bad and ungrateful children.
I am interested in the fact that we can observe how certain societies build forms of bonding, which include types of care, relationship and support that can even acquire social value.
For a good part of the 20th century, caring for parents or grandparents was a virtue for which certain particular interests could be sacrificed, although it could also lead to painful situations like that daughter dedicated to her parents in the film "Water for Chocolate". ”.
In other words, the question is how to balance an individualistic ethic that opens multiple personal floodgates to be and decide about oneself, without leaving the subject too alone and unprotected.
Faced with a more community ethic in which we can take better care of ourselves but also suffering intrusions that are not tolerable today.
The limits of gratitude do not seem to condition this type of responsibility in the same way as in other generations.
The recognition of the other responded to very precise collective criteria and, if not met, implied clear community sanctions.
On the contrary, many of the forms of social conditioning aim at not losing track of oneself, except with children, where there are strong restrictions on care and affection due to how highly valued the figure of the child is today. .
The question that arises is how to reconcile the feeling of gratitude towards “less” socially appreciated figures, with the concrete difficulties to carry it out, or how to ensure that said feeling can be transferred to precise aid, without it being experienced as a nuisance only handled by the feeling of guilt, forcing oneself or abandonment to the other.
Cicero considered gratitude not only the greatest of the virtues, but also the mother of all others.
Since those relationships that generated links, a term that precisely refers to tether in its Latin etymology, would make many other, more abstract forms of solidarity possible.
For this reason, it is a valuable term to describe that intimate relationship with the other that implies an exchange, a meeting, a way of sharing, but also something that transforms the giver and the receiver, in a clear vindication of the value of generosity.
Meanwhile, there is not only a return of what has been received, but also a desire to give that is transmitted to others, who have not necessarily helped.
On the contrary, when this does not happen, the subject would be limited by the perception of lack with what was received and disappointment in front of others.
Why stop at this topic today?
In older people, particularly in the face of certain pathologies or limitations in independence, facing complex mourning or even due to the lack of work spaces, levels of loneliness and a threatening feeling of insecurity can increase, which may imply that the new forms of Bonding, with family or close friends, may become more demanding, generally due to the increase in the level of need for company or support.
It is there where the lack of gratitude networks can become obligatory filial tasks that end in forms of violence.
On the other hand, when caring for others appears as an obligation devoid of meanings that exalt or value it, it can make the task, if fulfilled, heavier and produce a corrosive sensation of doing something that goes against oneself.
“Buying a problem”, as if it were something that can be ejected, and not as if it were a bond that binds us, as much as it humanizes us.
For all this, gratitude can become a way of affirming oneself, which implies costs, but also concrete rewards, but also more abstract ones.
Research in psychology has shown that gratitude increases a sense of trust, which results in greater well-being and control over personal circumstances.
Evidence indicates that there would be an increased feeling of personal growth, purpose in life, and self-acceptance.
Factors that make it possible to improve difficult experiences since gratitude is more than a precise exchange of goods, but rather the response to a transmission of love that generates trust in human relationships.
To finish, I would quote the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein who argued that when a child feels pity for an injured squirrel and helps it, the hostile world becomes kinder.
PhD in Psychology (UBA)
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