Respect for Caregivers: A Mother's Day Sermon by Faye Ku

Watch Faye deliver this sermon herself on YouTube, or read the full transcript below: https://youtu.be/1s_JnLwaOfs

[Chalice Lighting]

"As we light this chalice on this Mother’s Day, may its flame remind us of the warmth, guidance, and unending care that caregivers weave into our lives. May we open our hearts to the respect we so deeply owe one another, today and every day."

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RESPECT for Caregivers and Why Universality?

Hello friends, I’m Faye Ku, born in Taiwan, immigrated to the USA at 6, grew up American in the suburbs, and earned a degree in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley. Now I live in Katy, Texas, with my youngest son, Zephyr. We are inseparable, and I’m honored to share this Mother’s Day sermon with our Spring Branch Unitarian Fellowship.

Well, that’s all the testimony that I wanted to give, but it would have hidden all the most terrible and dark and scary things that have happened to me, and the depths of despair that I have experienced in living my life, full of trauma and pain and suffering. I got divorced, tried to escape the United States, got brought back and put in jail for eleven months, and then had to get my child back from foster care. I’m still working to be reunited with my two oldest children, while living in poverty. I can think of several more terrible episodes of my life that I would not care to share in public, for fear of shocking you and losing your respect.

However, the reason I can stand before you today is that in jail I experienced a miraculous outpouring of support from friends and family, officers and inmates, that I did not even realize cared so much about me. The smaller the community, the more I thrived, because I was good at earning and keeping the most vital currency that you could trade in, even in jail. No, it’s not cigarettes like in the movies. Anyone have a guess what it is? It’s RESPECT. That’s right, in the darkest places, there is still a community of humans, and in this circle, I knew how to earn and give RESPECT.

Today I am reminded of Aretha Franklin’s song, "Respect," which became a feminist anthem, as it invited a presumed man—her life partner—to discover what R‑E‑S‑P‑E‑C‑T really means to her.

Many people now do not know or remember that the song was originally written and performed by a man, Otis Redding, dubbed the “King of Soul” back in 1965. Aretha took the song in 1967 and, with a few lyrical changes and the shift of perspective that comes from a woman singing it, won the first two of her eighteen Grammy Awards with her musical response to the King. In doing so, she earned herself the title, the “Queen of Soul.”

The song “Respect” became a symbol of female empowerment, reversing the original meaning. When Otis Redding sang it, he sounded like a whiny, traditional male chauvinist asking for respect for handing over his paycheck to his wife at the end of the workday. But when Aretha belted out her version, she reminded everyone that the modern woman has her own money to hand over—and she already is everything he wants. When is it time for the woman to get her own respect? And what does respect really mean? Is it sexual power to dominate another? Or something deeper?

We are half a century past this conversation through music, but we still have not quite grasped the real meaning of RESPECT. Look in the dictionary and you will find intangibles: a feeling of deep admiration for someone elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements; or due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others. How do you give that anyway? I’m pretty sure we have been giving women that kind of respect—our mothers and caregivers—so much love and admiration that we have neglected to pay them for their labor. Why not? After all, we pay foster parents and respite care workers.

Both Otis’s and Aretha’s versions of “Respect” reference giving the other person all their money, as if money alone makes one deserving of respect. So that’s beautiful: we found a way for women to be “liberated” by working for money that can be exchanged for respect. But what that also meant was that the unpaid work we do at home—caregiving, nurturing, loving—was not deemed worthy of respect because it did not earn money.

Yet most people would agree that moms and caregivers deserve the utmost respect for doing the highest-priority work of all. So I’m going to argue now that we need another shift in perspective and another revolution in our understanding of RESPECT, this anthem of equality. If money is traded for respect, then we must give money to all people who deserve respect.

The Universal Basic Income is the only policy I know of today that finally gives value to what caregivers and parents do. Aretha Franklin would have known this policy as the Guaranteed Minimum Income that Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. championed. She not only sang in his childhood gospel choir but, in her full magnificent adulthood, put her money where her heart was—helping Dr. King make payroll, filling gas tanks for his vans on tour, and donating free concerts to the civil rights movement.

UBI understands the meaning of RESPECT and finally recognizes all humans as valuable. Respect is social status. And status is now stored in our society as money. Therefore, the person who accumulates the most money is considered to have the highest social status. Money gives choices. You can use it to make other humans do things for you or make things for you. It’s a force multiplier at least as powerful as a gun, if not more. Money is political voice now. So money gives power, influence, and ultimately freedom.

If we REALLY respected our moms and pops, our grandmothers and caregivers, we would not allow them to do all this work for intangibles that cannot be traded widely to meet their needs. We would not force lifetime caregivers to depend on the goodwill of a single paycheck or a welfare system that forces them to jump through undignified hoops for a pittance.

Not a single one of us came into the world able to walk, talk, or grow without someone to raise us. Other creatures are born to run or swim or communicate, but humans must be painstakingly carried—first in the womb, then in the arms of caregivers—taught how to speak, think, and love.

Unless we return to a gift economy where money is of no importance, we must show our respect for the most important work of all—raising humans and caring for those who cannot care for themselves—by giving every single human their propers, a basic income to take care, to TCB: take care of business.

And how do we as a society treat our humans? We can’t even agree on how to measure poverty. The Census Bureau estimated that in 2021, 11.6% of Americans — roughly 38 million people — lived at or below the poverty level, using the Official Poverty Measure (OPM). The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) differs from the official poverty measure by considering noncash benefits, taxes, work-related expenses, and medical expenses, providing a more comprehensive picture of poverty.

All we ever hear about is “inflation” but did you know that the pandemic cash relief and extra food stamps and other cash programs like unemployment insurance made a huge dent on poverty? In 2021, bolstered by federal pandemic relief, economic security programs drove the poverty rate down to a record low of 8.0 percent. The expiration of that aid drove poverty back up in 2022, to 12.4 percent. The number of people living in poverty fell by 14.5 million between 2019 and 2021 and rose back up by 14.5 million in 2022.

This increase translates to a larger number of individuals below the poverty line, with the SPM rate reaching 42.8 million people in 2023.

Did you know that Social Security continues to be the largest anti-poverty program, with 27.6 million individuals being moved out of SPM poverty in 2023?

That’s impressive work by scholars and policymakers, but I’m tired of letting data override the heart. The brain is useful, but the heart guides our priorities. All these statistics tell me we’re arguing over how many we can leave behind. Growing the middle class means accepting a lower class to scare everyone else. That’s the brain talking.

The heart of a parent says we will not leave any child behind. Not one. As in Lake Wobegon, we want to live in a place where all children are above average, all women strong, all men good-looking. We want them to succeed—meaning none ever fail. We can do that as a nation, and we should. We need to stand behind Basic Income, and more importantly, make it universal—to give every human dignity, respect, and freedom.

We are all someone’s child, and the only way to honor the decades of devotion by moms and dads everywhere is to give everyone their propers in an amount sufficient to sustain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That’s the America I want to live in. That’s the America I want to give my children. We are all worthy of RESPECT, and we all deserve a BASIC INCOME. Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me!

Before we depart, please help yourself to a small ¼-sheet flyer from the Income Movement at the back of the hall. It’s a simple guide to keep this conversation—and this respect—alive in our daily lives.

Benediction

May we go forth this Mother’s Day in love and solidarity, honoring every caregiver with our gratitude—and by building a world where universal respect is not just a dream but a guarantee. Blessed be.

Mothers shape us with stories and song. In that spirit, my son Zephyr will read Monster Mama, a playful yet powerful tribute to the mothers who guard and guide us. Zephyr?