Put on your hat, says Mama to the seven-year-old boy. This is probably care.

Put on your hat, says Mama to the forty-year-old boy. Is this also care?

What is considered normal and even mandatory for caring for a child may seem strange for an adult. Even annoying or humiliating.

One thinks he is seen as unfit for adult life.

And another thinks his warmest and brightest feelings are being rejected.

But when does care become a burden and an indication of another's frailty? At what definite age?

The word care means: "concern for someone or something, associated with efforts aimed at their well-being." Concern involves responsibility for another, and the efforts represent some activity: cognitive, behavioral, or emotional.

Can we consider a mother active and responsible if she manages to mention the hat 10 times in three minutes? Undoubtedly, from the outside, she seems very active and worried: she talks a lot, perhaps even gestures, expresses various emotions, and insistently puts the hat directly in his hands. But is her activity directed at her son at that moment? Or is it directed at her own concern: the itchy need to mention the hat?

Of course, she surely worries about his health. But maybe she's also concerned with the necessity of mentioning the hat? Because a good mother cares for her children. Because she's always done so, even from when he was little. But is she active in relation to the thoughts, feelings, and state of her son at that moment?

And what about being aimed at well-being? Can one say a mother who worries about her son's health does not act in his best interest?

But, if it's not Mama, but, for example, a stranger in the metro. Perhaps this would be considered inappropriate, but does it make health a less noble endeavor?

When we determine for someone else what is their good, it greatly simplifies our task: to be a good mother, woman, person. Because then it is not necessary to know their opinion at all. And it is not at all scary to make a mistake. We already know perfectly well what to do.

But are we truly focused at that moment on the welfare of others, and not our own?