On March 16, 2022, I had a wonderful chat/interview with Louise Kinross of the Holland-Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto. Go here for the interview: Holland-Bloorview
Gabbard: “I think men can benefit greatly from a caregiving experience as it forces them to start thinking in a whole different way about resources and time and all of the expectations we have in life. We’re trained, as men, to believe we have to go out into the world, into the public sphere, and do whatever it is to make a strong living and presence, and that’s often exclusive of the granular family work of caring for a disabled child. But we miss out on so much. We often don’t have a rich world because we’ve stunted ourselves by focusing on the narrow public sphere.
“Anyone who has been a caregiver doesn’t easily romanticize it. There’s a lot of stress and fatigue and anger and rage. But when I speak about the great transformation that happened spiritually to me, it was fueled by that. One goes with the other. The greater the stress the greater the enlightenment.”