Recently, in one of my EKP body psychotherapy groups, a very interesting thread of conversation emerged about food, clothing and shelter. As the conversation unfolded, I came to realize that in our culture today, how we have come to understand food, clothing and shelter is very different than when I was growing up. This difference was underscored poignantly as I recently spent some time with Native Americans in the Southwest.
When I think of the words, "food, clothing and shelter," I think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. "Food, clothing and shelter" are at the bottom of the pyramid of needs for life, providing the foundation, our most essential needs. "Self-actualization" is at the very top--the icing on the cake when all other basic needs are satisfied.
Armoire
When I was growing up, food was something you bought at the grocery store and then prepared and cooked at home. When I had a chance to go to a farm, as I learned how to milk a cow or tend to vegetable plants, I got to see where food "really came from."
What Are Our Basic Human Needs? Redefining Food, Clothing and Shelter
As a child, I spent a lot of hours gardening and growing vegetables in my backyard. Clothing was something I learned how to sew from McCall's or Simplicity patterns in Home Economics class or something one could purchases at stores like Sears or Filene's Basement. The goal was to take care of whatever clothes I made or purchased, so they would last a long time. And plenty of kids provided or received "hand me downs."
Shelter was a simple, yet sufficient home. In the 1950's and 1960's, ranch and Cape Cod style houses were built, and served as the warm vessel for home and hearth.
I have found, over the years, that in some ways I have become a dinosaur, an anachronysm, as the practices associated with food, clothing ahd shelter have changed drastically, in our "crazybusy" commercial culture. I still prepare home-cooked meals every day and grow vegetables in my garden. I have come to see how rare this is. When my son was in pre-school, he had a friend over for dinner. I had made a home-cooked dinner, and my son's friend didn't recognize any of what was on the table. Steamed vegetables. Cut fruit. A carefully prepared entree.
The boy exclaimed, "What is this food? What we have at home is Chinese take-out, KFC or McDonald's." I explained what I had prepared, and the boy said, "My mom never makes home-cooked meals." I guess that was one of my first initiations.
Recently, I heard someone comment, "Dinner means I give someone a twenty dollar bill, and they give something back to me." With the burgeoning of prepared foods and restaurants of every possible cuisine imagineable, "food" for many of us is something someone else prepares, and we purchase to eat--either in or out of the home. The cost of prepared food can be much greater than the cost of a home-cooked meal. But time has become even more precious than money in many circumstances. And when both time and money are scarce, the quality of food one can have diminuishes.
And then, there is clothing... About eight years ago, a friend of mine who was going through a divorce asked if she could stay with me for a few months while she transitioned and figured out her next steps. I said, "Yes." So, in moved my friend, along with her extensive wardrobe.
At first, I was taken aback. One day when I went to her house to help her move, I saw that she had filled an entire room with clothes. I soon discovered, that was only the first course on her menu. She had filled two walk-in closets, a bathroom, and the bedroom she shared with her soon to be ex-husband. How could she fit all of those clothes in the spacious, but nonetheless, solo bedroom she would be staying in at my house?
My friend decided to put half her clothes in storage, delegate her second tier choices to my basement, bought a special armoire to supplement the brimmingly full closet, and considered herself "roughing it." As someone with an eye for fashion, my friend thought she had just what she needed to be "current."
Then, came the woman who had a great corporate job and a six figure income, but never enough money. A major woe for her was that she spent a fortune on clothing, because once she had worn an outfit a couple of times, it was time to throw it out and buy a new one. I was, once again, surprised, feeling at the very least naive, and perhaps even Polyannaish. I asked her why she didn't wash her clothes or take them to the dry cleaners. She replied that would be too much work. In her busy life, it was just easier to buy new clothes. And besides, they'd always look fresh.
I recently learned from a man working in the corporate world, that even though his best intention is to dry clean some of his expensive professional suits, some sort of coating is put on the fabric that breaks down at the dry cleaners. So, in essence, he has little choice but to wear the suit til it is dirty, and then throw it out and buy a new one.
In each of these cases, the definition of "clothing" is so different than what I ever imagined it might be, and what is "necessary" to have "enough" feels wasteful at many levels--be it through people's definition of what "being okay" or "professional" or "current" means...or even through the planned obsolescence that comes with clothes that aren't made to last--but rather to break down.
And finally, there is shelter. Chances are you know what's going to come next. In my town, even in my neighborhood, so many of those cozy, homey ranches and capes have been torn down in favor of today's MacMansion.
On my own street, just a handfull of years after I moved into my house, a lot of land was sold to a real estate baron. Suddenly a gigantic two-family unit was constructed, that didn't fit in with the character of this Victorian-lined "historic district" location. Several years later, the same folks who sold the parcel of land, most likely in a time of financial difficulty, sold a tiny strip of land in back of their house, moved their carriage house onto the adjacent street to become a garage and allowed a tall, thin luxury two- condominium structure to reach into the sky. A copper beach tree that was hundreds of years old was lost in the process. But a lot of money was to be made and spent by real estate developers and consumers of luxury condos. I was very sad.
That took place a number of years ago, and seems tame compared to the 10,000 square foot home the parents of someone in my son's school now live in, having torn down a perfectly good 1950's home and built their MacMansion. Do these huge homes really provide shelter? And if so, from what? Surely not the same elements the Native American folks I spent time with were referring to.
As someone who still sees the merit in the definition of "basic needs" I came to understand as a child, I find it scary and overwhelming to see our "supersized," "crazybusy," "commodity-based" new definitions of these essentials. I think the essence of our basic needs gets lost in the "packaging" of what we feel pulled to "consume." Perhaps another kind of empty calories, translated beyond the realm of food and nutrition?
Can we find more meaningful ways to "feed," "clothe" and "shelter" ourselves, and even enrich these concepts to include true nourishment, protection and expression, and home/hearth? Perhaps that is what Maslow might have envisioned when he created his model. I suspect, he didn't have the "supersized" versions of today's culture in mind!
What Are Our Basic Human Needs? Redefining Food, Clothing and Shelter
