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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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a great, important post, Meagan. Thanks for your honesty.
I have two immediate thoughts. The first is YES, I agree with Sarah’s take on asking for help. Being able to ask for help affects our lives and the lives of those around us in countless ways. In addition to the very practical side (being able to get the support we need) it also opens us up to helping others (as Sarah also mentioned).
The other really important aspect, I’ve discovered, is the message asking for help communicates: It says “I’m not perfect. My life isn’t perfect. No one expects you to be perfect. We’re all in this together and can support one another.” Being able to communicate this helps everyone let go of guilt and uber-high expectations, and allows us to be more forgiving and compassionate–of ourselves and others. I think that’s huge.
Finally, I’ve learned quite a bit about suicide lately. An acquaintance committed suicide about six weeks ago, and my close friend felt a lot of responsibility as her biggest support system. One of the things that’s hard to understand, if you’re not feeling that trapped in your life, is the guilt that can come with allowing people to help you. Each person who helps you can become one more person you “owe,” or one more person to please, which can add to the pressure even more than it relieves it. That’s neither here nor there, but it was an enlightening perspective–one that reminds us how important blind compassion is, because we can never fully understand what someone is struggling with.
Like you I tend to draw pretty firm boundaries. It comes from a childhood spent with a father who was sort of a train wreck. Eventually all that I could do was dissociate myself, and I don’t regret that. Although he did die a few years later I’ve made my peace with the situation – there was nothing I could have said or done. I tried, it wasn’t successful, and I’m OK with that. He didn’t commit suicide, and I’m not sure whether I would feel differently if he had.
The point is that drawing firm boundaries has WORKED for me. At least some of the time. I have watched people who don’t face a lot of problems when they take responsibility for others.
All the same, you’ve given me a lot to think about here. Because I also firmly believe we need to be willing to ask for, and accept, help. And that we need to give others the benefit of the doubt. On closer examination I’m not sure I always do that very well. It’s a direction I could grow in, for sure. Thanks for giving me some food for thought.
I remember meeting a woman several years ago that struck me as too friendly too soon. I mean, I didn’t even know her, and she was talking about getting our families together and hanging out. I am really slow to get to know people, and I distrusted her. She persisted, though, and wore me down a little. We exchanged Christmas gifts and promised to get together in January. She died a few days after Christmas.
We hold her up as an example of someone just trying to get to know you; that time is precious, and we just shouldn’t slow around with relationships. I am still not great at connecting with people, but I try a lot harder, and with a lot more urgency since I met this woman. You never know what people are going through.
Oh man, this is an area where I am awful. I am good at helping people. Maybe not great at it, but good. I try to make sure I can help. I am terrible at accepting help. I need to work on this one, but it’s really hard. After Katie was born, we did not do a great job of letting people help us. Everyone wanted to, but we didn’t take them up on it in the way we should have.
With her surgery looming, I am trying to make myself accept help and allow people to do for us so we can concentrate on her and doing the right things for her.
i need to ask for help, and offer help. sometimes, i feel very isolated because a lot of our friends don’t have kids. the ones that do, i feel awkward asking them for favors. because i work full time, it’s very hard for me to return favors, except on weekends…and weekends are for ME and my kids and what WE want to do. however, i think it would be a good step to take, even if it meant inviting a few more kids into “our” time.
Excellent thoughts on giving help and asking for help. We live in a world where self sufficiency is next to godliness. And yet few of us can stand life alone as an island (you like my cliches?). Balance, yes…the ultimate goal in most things, the most difficult thing to attain. One thing that helps is trusting ourselves to meet people with whom we can be vulnerable. Another is when we agree to give a favor, it comes with clear guidelines. Too many times I’ve helped with relatives’ kids only to have them eat their way through my groceries and my time, one hour turns to two…That’s when I take a deep breath and remind myself I will need her help someday too. And I will for sure ask.
In fact, this last time her kids were over, we had a few moments to talk and she revealed some really difficult things she’s dealing with. If I had not offered to have the kids there, we would not have had that time, and now I know her, someone in my family,a whole lot better.
This is a timely post for me. I am strangely good at being helpful (or at least trying to be/offering) but I’m also one of those women out there in the water not only trying to doggie-paddle to keep my head above water but also trying to throw in some synchronized swimming moves to show just how “fine” I am. So although I’m good at offering help to my closest friends if someone stumbles and doesn’t accept the offers of help I tend to walk away (not exactly noble). My thinking tends to be ‘Well fine then! I’m doing what I can and if you don’t want my help I won’t offer again. EVER!”) And I seriously suck at accepting help. But with our first baby due in a week I’ve been trying really hard to accept the offers that have already come in (and the help I’ve had so far just with people reaching out and being understanding) but I’m trying to tell myself that accepting help doesn’t mean I’m incapable of doing something just that it could be easier (on me) if I don’t fight it.
Wow. I am speechless after reading Jane’s story. Very sad indeed.
We don’t ask for help often enough even though most people are so willing to give it. I wrote about learning to say yes to help on my blog a little while back. I still have a hard time asking for help but I *always* say yes when I’m offered a hand with something. That, for me, was a big step.
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