Beyond Transactional

Gift giving, social exchange theory, and what is means to foster a nurturing web of community.

Yesterday afternoon, when I picked up my youngest from forest school, he handed me a little gift bag. Confused, I asked him where it had come from, and his teacher quickly explained that they had passed it on from R’s previous forest teacher, from when we lived further north. They are in a tracking course together and had seen each other over the weekend.

My heart melted a bit: Matt and Kim (recently featured on the podcast) are friends from before our move and also R’s forest school teachers, with whom he has built a strong bond over the last three years.

As I got in the car, I opened a beautiful handcrafted necklace, a small wooden carving of a mushroom, along with three notes. The first note was from R’s old forest school classmates—all signed with love. The second and third notes were from Kim and Matt, respectively. One expressed how much they missed him, while the other explained the gifts, representing his old forest that he could carry with him.

Enough to make any mama sob, right?

I feel compelled to write about this experience because it encapsulates so much of what I believe is “doing it right.” When I first heard the term “transactional relationship,” it resonated with me. I understood that capitalism is built on individual transactions, substituting these fleeting instances of human connection for what should really be genuine relationships.

To break it down, a transactional relationship is one where interactions are primarily based on exchanges of resources or services rather than emotional connections or long-term commitments. Each party usually tries to maximize their own gain, focusing on tangible benefits. This concept emerges from Social Exchange Theory, a somewhat reductionist approach that measures human behavior in terms of individual exchanges, positing that motivation for social interaction is largely based on a cost-benefit analysis. (I’m making a sour face typing this out...)

Here’s the thing: Matt and Kim, wonderful people that they are, were by no means obligated to engage in such depth of relationship with R or me. They run a forest school. I wished for my son to attend, paid them, and they took on the responsibility of caring for R for a set period, each of us fulfilling the terms of an unspoken contract.

If that were the end of the story, I would have still been happy with the interaction or transaction.

But it’s not the end. What unfolded beneath that hidden contract was something much deeper. We became friends. We exchanged care, gifts, and stories, developing a relationship far beyond the initial agreement that brought us together. In that connection, we discovered admirable qualities of care and love—not just between individuals but also between families.

There’s no hidden contractual obligation that requires one to give a gift, especially one so meaningful. Actions like this can’t be weighed by a cost-benefit analysis. While you could reduce it to exchanges of care intertwined with goods and services, that perspective strips away the deep, nourishing web of interaction we all have experienced in connected communities.

Building relationships like this isn’t simple or easy. Coming out of COVID isolation, I believe we are all still reeling from the absence of connected community care. Yes, yes, humans are social creatures, but there’s always context to consider. The current cultural landscape of late-stage capitalism means that we have individual and community needs extending far beyond what we might have experienced even 50 years ago. In a time when we are intensely disconnected from family, friends, nature, and meaningful work—while our nervous systems are on high alert from constant sensory stress and lack of rest—these transactional relationships contribute to a capitalist landscape of isolation, competition, and disconnection when what we need connection—DEEP connection! We need to feel cared for and to feel safe extending our own care into the world. We need to recognize our worth and value within that nourishing web of living interaction, not through transactional give-and-take, but in an intricate nest that cradles us all collectively.

When I first encountered the notion of transactional relationships, my instinct was to desperately reach for what it might mean to live beyond transactions. The simple answer is friendships, connections, and community. But there are different ways to embody these values. You can merely exist in friendships or communities, prioritizing yourself over the whole, or you can lean in deeply and cultivate that web of connection. You can notice, nurture those connections, and seek out more. You can pull people in and make them feel cared for. You can acknowledge and cradle the conflicts that naturally arise. You can give heartfelt gifts and extend care beyond individual transactions.

And the best part (my favorite part!) is that this way of living is necessarily anti-capitalist and decolonial. It rejects the cost-benefit analysis of social interaction, whether with human or non-human beings. It calls us to dig deeper, do the work, and divest from status quo. And that, in itself—ignoring all the other profound benefits—is enough motivation for me.

<3 <3 <3

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