Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sen. Becca Balint, of Brattleboro, a Democrat who represents Windham County in the Vermont Senate.
[R]ecently a constituent shared with me his frustration that people don’t seem to pitch in like they used to in his town. He said, “People have gotten so lazy. We can’t get anyone to sit on boards. It’s the same handful of people who step up to help; I think most folks just don’t care.” Although I understand his frustration — my wife and I are both totally overextended — it’s not laziness; many families are painfully stretched to their max. Many are working hard simply to stay out of the undertow.
Last week a Brattleboro preK school closed its doors after over 70 years. Started in the 1930s as a progressive nursery school, it managed to survive decade after decade as a parent collective, offering quality early education at an affordable price. I sat on its board for a time several years ago, and even then sensed that the model just wasn’t working anymore. We struggled mightily to get parents to help out — something that in the past had not felt like a monumental task. We always returned to the same basic truth: Very few parents had the time or the emotional energy to help out.
Whether they were single parents, couples with both parents working full time outside the home, or grandparents raising their children’s children due to the opioid epidemic, it was clear that we simply could not get blood from a stone. And it felt heartless to ask. Assuming that they didn’t care created a subtle form of shaming.
I have witnessed and experienced more overt examples of shaming. A legislator told me last year that it should be illegal to buy anything online from Amazon. Although the hyperbole was silly, I wanted to unpack her sentiment a little more so that I could fully understand its roots. As I suspected, she’s worried about our downtowns and would like more Vermonters to shop locally. I concur. I live in town and shop downtown whenever I can, but there are simply things I can’t buy anywhere in my county. For example: a child’s car seat.
Sometimes shame is sanctimony disguised as a good deed.
Most children now need to be strapped into a car seat or booster until about the time they leave for college. Understandably, we are strongly discouraged from using secondhand ones, as you can’t guarantee that a car seat hasn’t been in an accident. So, my choices are as follows: 1.) Drive across the river to New Hampshire and the nearby WalMart, 2.) Increase my carbon footprint by driving even farther into New Hampshire or Massachusetts to a department store that isn’t WalMart, or 3.) Take out my cellphone and order from Amazon.
The third option is preferable for so many reasons: I don’t have to schlep my cranky self — and my even crankier kids — in the car; I don’t waste gas or my precious time; and I have a smaller carbon footprint, as the UPS driver and the postal worker are already doing deliveries in my neighborhood.
I pointed all this out, but she still insisted that it was just “wrong” for parents to make that decision. A dear friend with four kids often hears the same schtick: She should shop locally instead of driving to a discount supermarket. I know that at the end of each week, she and her husband have no financial wiggle room. She doesn’t need the judgment from others about where she buys food; her life is stressful enough. And to boot, she contributes to her community in many other important ways.
Sometimes shame is sanctimony disguised as a good deed. I was shocked and disheartened to learn that teachers at an elementary school in my region decided that the lunch that a parent packed for her child was not “healthy” enough. Rather than offering supplemental options, they took away the home lunch and insisted that the child eat the school lunch. This confused the child and embarrassed the parent. I fear this happens more than we know. A parent who’s clearly making a real effort to take care of her child’s needs should not be made to feel inadequate. Not only is it unfeeling; it is not effective.
Dr. Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, studies shame and stigmatization and how it impacts overweight people in their efforts to improve their eating decisions and patterns. The data is clear: When obese people are shamed about their weight, they do not make healthier choices. The research evidence clearly shows that weight-related stigma and shame leads to adverse impacts, including binge eating, increased food consumption, exercise avoidance and increased stress.
Dr. Puhl told me recently: “It’s interesting to see that despite considerable evidence on this issue, we continue to see widespread societal perceptions that stigma and shame may be ‘justifiable’ because it will motivate or provide incentive for people to lose weight. The reality is that the opposite is true.” This makes sense. How many of us have ever positively reacted to shame? Why do we expect a different outcome in others? Whether the issue is weight loss, shopping, parenting or volunteering, shame is not going to get you what you really want: eager, engaged partners.
It is tempting to assume others were more “community-minded” in a distant halcyon past or that neighbors were more caring and altruistic. Our communities (and how they are organized) feel different because they are, but different does not imply worse. And shaming others into participating will not give us a positive return on this negative investment of energy.
What could happen if we instead employed a generosity of spirit? What possibilities open up when we shift our thinking and accept that perhaps it’s the model or paradigm that’s flawed and not the people?
