I’ve been part of an online parenting community since my 11-year-old son was a baby. The community, which pre-dates mommyblogging and goes way back to freebie Bravenet message boards and IRC chats, has changed and evolved and gained some people and lost some, but a core group has remained. We have fascinating (and sometimes heated) conversations there, and I consider these smart, opinionated women my friends, though I’ve never met the vast majority of them.
Last week one of my friends from the community posted to ask whether we thought it was weird that another mother she knew—but not that well—had called to ask if her daughter could spend the night at my friend’s house.
The opinions ranged from “totally rude” to “no big deal”, but Sarah, one of my mothering mentors—the mom I want to be when I grow up—had this to say:
“No, it doesn’t strike me as weird. I applaud her. Yup, I do. It’s hard to reach out and ask for a favor. But when we do, people are so willing to help out. And in turn, we are open to helping others. I really, really, really think we all need to exercise the asking for help when we need it muscle. Once someone starts that ball rolling it can really become a source of support for everyone.
My life has gotten much easier since I took a deep breath and started asking for favors. I am also more than willing to return favors, whether its babysitting, picking something up when I am going to the store, carpooling, etc. Really, I need help and most other moms I know need help and if we don’t speak up, no one is going to read our minds and come rushing with what we need.”
Though I’d originally been in the “that’s totally rude!” camp—after all, the request wasn’t phrased as a “can you help me out” request so much as a “my kid wants to come to your house” demand—Sarah’s words resonated with me.
And they weighed heavily on my mind a few days later when we found out that another longtime member of the group—I’ll call her “Jane”—died early last week, apparently a suicide, leaving behind five young children.
Jane was well-known in the community as an excellent, loving and devoted mother. But a few years ago, her life began to derail. After she and her long-time husband divorced, Jane tried to hold it all together for her children, but wound up in an abusive relationship from which she fled, pregnant. She lost custody of her kids and moved around the country trying to find stability and safety for herself and her baby-to-be. During that time she posted irregularly at our message boards, often sounding lost and unsure of what to do next. Her life, which had once seemed so serene, took on a train-wreck quality.
Here’s the part I’m almost too ashamed to write: there were several times over the last year or so that I became irritated with Jane. “Pull yourself together!” I wanted to yell through the monitor, even as I wrote niceties and shallowly supportive messages to her. Several people asked if there was any way they could help her; her response to offers of help were vague and cryptic, and soon afterward she’d disappear again not to be heard from for a few months.
I have prided myself on somebody who draws pretty clear boundaries with other people. I have a well-tuned BS-o-meter, and the people close to me tend to be pretty balanced. I have little tolerance for drama queens or energy vampires. And I think all that can be good—I’ve seen first-hand how friends of mine without those boundaries get sucked into the drama of their friends’ lives and take a lot of abuse for it.
And yet…I think sometimes that quality can lead to me being a little cold, and a little less tolerant than I could be of the ups, downs and train wrecks in other people’s lives. (because really, whose life doesn’t derail at least once?)
I wish Jane had been able to ask for help more directly. She probably had ingrained in her head that she should be able to handle it all without help or that asking for help would make her undeserving or weak.
And I wish I had been more gracious about her clumsy attempts at reaching out. I was drawing that boundary in my mind too clearly and too brightly. I bought into the same false cultural ideal Jane probably had—the one that says we should all be able to keep ourselves afloat, without ever grasping for a life jacket. And by God if we do grasp for one, we’d better do it just right.
In the end, it might not have changed anything. Certainly nobody can prevent someone from committing suicide if they’re determined to do it, most of us can’t read minds, and Jane may have been too physically, emotionally and mentally tired to even figure out how to ask for what she needed (or too quickly careening toward self-destruction to try). But I know I’d feel a lot better about the way I interacted with Jane toward the end of her life if I’d allowed myself to be just a bit more open and compassionate.
On the other hand, it’s possible there were people Jane was turning to, and I wonder if those people are feeling wrecked and guilty because they gave everything they could and in the end it wasn’t enough. Two sides, same coin.
Being a happy mom isn’t just about giving everything we have and it isn’t just about holding back. It’s about striking a balance: giving and taking, being both empowered and vulnerable enough, trusting others and protecting ourselves.
I know which area I need to work on. Do you?
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