On the pathway towards independence, children fluctuate between feeling big and feeling little. One day they pretend to be powerful super heroes saving the world, and the next day they become helpless kittens curled up on their teacher’s lap. It is exciting to grow up, but it’s also perplexing and a little bit scary.
Children express their ambivalence by pulling us close, and then pushing us away. We’ve all witnessed the determination of a toddler who proclaims, “I do it by myself” and it is easy to assume that when this autonomy is expressed so boldly, that the child is on their way to self-sufficiency. But independence is a tricky concept, and in the next growth spurt, the child becomes clingy and fearful, and we wonder –  is the child regressing? Why has it become a power struggle for them to dress themselves? Why do they still need my care?

When I see this mercurial behavior in children, acting both self-reliant and needy, I think it eloquently symbolizes the universal push and pull all humans experience  – the dance between our independence and our interdependence.

Often when children most need our care, it is not because they are physically vulnerable, but because they are asking the bigger psychological and philosophical questions about human life  - what does it mean to grow and change? Am I alone? Who am I in response to another? How much power do I really have? Who loves me? How are we connected?  What is the relational nature of life?

Our society and our educational systems place such a high value on independence, that sometimes we forget to value care. When children require our care, it is associated with neediness which is coupled with weakness, instead of the recognition that care is a beautiful and vital part of our humanness.

The notion of rugged individualism is really a myth. Even if we think we’ve reached the pinnacle, the adult state of independence, we must still acknowledge that our survival and success is always reliant upon someone else; the farmer who grows our food, the grocery store where we shop, the transportation system, and the care infrastructure that allows us to work and live, to name a few.  

We are all needy! There has always been a network of care that supports us, and for many years, most everyone free rode off women who cared for children and elders and made it possible for men to work and achieve.

The paradox of identity development is that we can’t do it alone. It is only through the response of the other that we find ourselves.

Care should not be held in contrast to independence and strength. It is time to push against the notion that care is a soft skill. As Nel Noddings says, “Care is the strong back bone of society”.  To be human is to follow our natural urge towards individualization and sovereignty while recognizing the seed of our personal power grows from community, cooperation, and care.

Imagine how our educational systems could change if we integrated care ethics into our pedagogy and practice. What if we explicitly analyzed the same questions young children ask at the beginning of life in their push and pull towards independence – the big questions about the relational nature of being human.  What if caring was taken seriously as an educational goal and objective; caring for one another, for our children, our elders, our community, our planet?
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Care looks differently at each stage of life, but care is what builds the foundation for self-worth, perspective taking, and empathy. These are the vital building blocks of a strong society.  Care offers all the conditions for progressive education and self-actualization. Care is not subordinate to education, care is education.


Carol Garboden Murray, Author of Illuminating Care, The Pedagogy and Practice of Care in Early Childhood Communities, Exchange Press, 2021.

Throughout my career, I heard this message, "Don’t talk about care.” At conferences and leadership institutes, I was told, “You will never be understood or respected if you use care to describe your work. Don’t call your school a child care center, call it an early learning center. You are more than just child care, and you should use the language of education.”

But care was the thing that fascinated me the most in my study of human development. I recognized the false dichotomy that education and care were separate. I wasn’t willing to rank care, hide care, or disguise care. I wanted to name care and to show that even the most basic rituals of caring between adult and child require dignity, respect, presence, dialogue, and intelligence.

Early childhood is the original care, and so as a first teacher, I have had the opportunity to practice and analyze care. I have written a book about care, not just because I want to take good care of children, but also because I believe that care offers a way of encountering the other—an ethical model for relationships that we can apply to the whole span of life. 

We are connected through care and dependency throughout the arc of our life. Care looks different at each stage of life, but care always builds the foundation for self-worth, for perspective-taking, for empathy. These are not soft skills—these are the vital building blocks of a strong humanity. Care offers all the conditions for progressive education and self-actualization. Care is the next frontier for achieving work-family balance and gender equality. Care is a basic human need, a public good, and a human right. I believe we need to analyze care, and practice care more than ever before because in our country we are in the midst of a care crisis. 

Care is endangered by programs that place inappropriate goals and misguided expectations on children and their teachers. Even in early childhood settings where care is assumed, care is most often an afterthought, and responsive care is neglected as an intentional teaching practice. Care is suffering because we have not shown its value as a public good in our country. Working families cannot afford high quality care for their children. The average annual cost of child care for one child in most states is more than the cost of a mortgage and is approaching parity with the cost of college tuition. Care is burdened because the underfunded care system has resulted in extremely low pay for early childhood teachers, many of whom are earning poverty wages.

It will take courage to face the care crisis. It will take courage to challenge the notion that care is subordinate to education or that care is women’s work and a private family matter. It will take courage to lift care from an association with weakness and fragility and align care with strength and power. It will take courage to show that caring is not custodial work that just anybody can do, but caring is an art and a science, and an honorable profession requiring much knowledge and many skills. It will take courage to free care from gender roles, and make care attractive to men and women, to all people, and to position care as a human right and a public good. It will take courage to illuminate care.
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During the global health crisis our whole world has paused, as our interconnectedness as humans has been highlighted like never before. The way we emerge from this moment in history will be dependent upon the way we care for one another. I believe that together we can rescue care and I believe that care can rescue us. 

Preview Illuminating Care here, https://exchangepress.com/catalog/product/illuminating-care/3600582/

During COVID child care we made changes to our traditional care rituals - especially those around meals. To minimize teacher prep time, reduce high touch surfaces, and increase sanitation around meals we stopped doing our family style snacks and asked families to send in brown paper bag snacks and water bottles each morning.  I really miss our family style shared morning snacks and I am looking forward to getting back to it. I just found these sweet vintage jelly jar glasses and can't wait to see them in the hands of children.

It is good to teach children to drink from a an open cup quite early. Teachers report that more and more children are delayed in drinking from a cup because of our water bottle and sippy-cup culture. Drinking from a cup supports oral motor skills and ushers in the ease and mastery of other important tools - such as getting the spoon or fork to the lips.

Children are still learning how to control hand gradation from firm to gentle grasps and they will crumble plastic or paper cups with their small fists. Small metal or plastic cups are better for giving the child the firm feedback to support learning this new skills - and there's nothing quite as pleasing as drinking from glass. 

Drinking from an open glass or cup is different than drinking from a sippy or a water bottle. Young children who drink from sippy-cups habitualize throwing their heads back to allow liquid to flow, while drinking from a cup actually requires the skill of holding the head relatively level while the hand and head work together to coordinate just the right flow of liquid into the mouth.

To think of care as an art, invites us to place attention on the materials of care, and meals offer such rich possibilities. When we value care, we find luxury in the simplicity of every day items. The art of care need not be flowery or decorative - the sophistication of real objects shows an honest respect for care that can elevate routines to educational experiences. We can see the beauty in the authenticity of daily living and witness the miracle of the mundane as the child learns to tip a cup and take a drink.