Being valued is certainly something younger people mostly take for granted and have come to expect from friends, family, employers and colleagues. It is through our relationships with these groups that we get a sense of our personal value and worth.
For some time, emphasis has been placed on value systems in parenting, at school, in the workplace and in personal relationships of all types. Feeling valued is central to customer relationship management, and to all human resources in the business sector. Indeed, there are acres of words written on the subject.
We expect our close friends and family to take account of our feelings, needs, desires, our ideas and dreams and we expect them to support us. We expect to be treated as individuals, to be given attention and time when we need it. And it's not just a one-way street - we want people to need and value us, too. After all, it is a demonstration of mutual respect and is at the heart of living in a civilised society.
Parents of young children know the joy of feeling loved, needed and appreciated and it doesn't just underpin the love they have for one another, but also enhances their personal sense of self-worth. It is part of what might loosely be described as 'quallty of life' in the family.*
As adults, taking care of our own affairs, mutual support in the family, with friends, colleagues and the community is something most people take as read - it's part of what makes us feel 'whole'. Unsurprisingly, a number of research studies show that maintaining a sense of identity is closely linked to self-esteem.
But consider the following for a moment the following questions:
You are largely alone in the world and are struggling to maintain your sense of who you are.
Who cares what you think about your life, what your needs are, how you spend your time, how you manage to do things from day to day, who you'd like to see or spend time with?
Who shows interest in where you came from, your life experiences and how that makes you who you are today?
Who wants to know what your dreams are, what you really want out of your life?
As importantly, who ever asks you to do anything for them?
You might think that these questions refer to the millions of the oldest old living alone in the UK - and you'd be right.
But look at the questions again and reflect that this is also the reality for swaithes of people living in care homes up and down the country as well. We need to give their sense of worth back to these people to give them a renewed sense of self. We need to recognise that in fact, we need our older people as much as they need us and we need to value their ongoing contribution to life.
* Of course not all families get on, perhaps this is caused partly by a lack of mutual respect
Comments