Telling Mothers To Ask For Help Is Not Helping
Do you really want to help? Make her and her family a tasty dinner or bring her a snack and go home
When I was expecting my second child, I was determined to nail being a mother of two.
See, my first year with my first child was somewhat of a disaster. It was so bad that for some time we were sure we were sticking with being parents to only one.
3 years later and after a couple of full night nights of sleep, we forgot everything. All the stress, sleep deprivation, endless crying- poof! Gone.
I was reviewing my experience and making notes- what can I do to survive this? I was taking lectures and following Instamoms to be prepared for everything that was coming my way. Me and my husband are a great team but he has to work so it was obvious I was mostly going to be alone with kids. Two kids. Where one is going to be an infant that, in my experience, takes 100% of the time and the other one is a pre-schooler with a complicated emotional world who is used to a lot of attention.
It seemed that the advice No.1 was to ask for help. Alright, that I can do. I am lucky enough to have a support system- two grandmothers, an amazing sister with three kids of her own, and a bunch of wonderful friends and friendly neighbors. People were assuring me to ask if I needed anything. I felt confident and ready. We can do this!
Until the baby was born and we could finally start to live that life we were trying to guess before. Turned out- we guessed wrong!
Thanks but no thanks
It was a tiny bit easier than I had imagined. I didn’t count on the thing that kids also sense the environment and adapt to it. They both understood they were not the only child and it seems now that no one has taken an offense either.
What I didn’t predict was the amount of overwhelm I would experience. It takes time for the brain to adapt to all the extra information it has to process. In my case- it is still taking its time.
The most torturing thing is to think about everything that needs to be done and then try to verbalize it.
And this is where all that hopeful helping thing is vanishing into the air of Nop.
Firstly, it is hundreds of times easier to do the thing by myself than to explain all the details to someone else.
Secondly, there are not so many things to help with!
All the good-meaning helpers are not going to wake up at night, do the mountains of laundry, or clean my house.
Taking my kids away so I can “ rest or wash the floor” is not helping either. I want to be with my kids! And my kids, especially an infant, want and need to be with me, too.
Where the problem lies
At one point it is just natural that parents of young kids will be exhausted. It is intense and challenging. The thing is- society just needs to acknowledge it and zip it with the advice.
“Oh, you look tired! Why don’t you ask for help?”, is something too many of us tell too easily. In reality, it makes it sound like we are to be blamed for being tired as we are not asking for help.
“Stop whining, ask for help!”, “ Asking for help will solve everything!”
Help with what, dear society? What can you do to help with my kid asking 500 questions an hour? Can you make my kids not be sick every other week? Can you guess what my kids will not refuse to eat today? Can you make them less noisy on the days my head hurts? Could you please make them not spill every time whatever they are pouring? Well, you got the idea. Everyday life is A LOT.
Expect us to be tired and do not blame us for not asking for your help.
What actually helps
I am fully aware that my rant about helping is not going to resonate with every parent. Relationships differ, and things we expect differ. But, hey, we just all try to survive here.
Here are the things I have found to be helpful during my time raising small kids:
- Eliminating all the unnecessary distractions.
I caught myself once being dramatically overwhelmed while breastfeeding my baby, scrolling Instagram, and trying to answer a question my pre-schooler was asking. At that moment I felt my head was going to explode. Quick evaluation illuminated that 3 ingredient brownie recipe on IG I was trying to read was the last priority in all that situation. I decided to spare my brain from unnecessary information and deleted my Facebook account and Instagram app from my phone.
2. Hiring people or services.
If I feel there is something that needs to be done that I can not handle myself, I spare some money to hire someone who knows the task. The cleaning lady is my absolute favorite. She knows what to do, I do not need to explain to her where goes what. She comes, makes my house beautiful, and leaves. I love her.
Grocery store delivery is my second best.
Food delivery is nice, but too expensive and food reaches my house all soggy. Still saves my life sometimes, though.
3. Lowering the demands on myself.
When my first child was born, I had guests non-stop. I thought I wanted to socialize and I thought I needed to do it. Friends, family, relatives- someone was always visiting. I liked it but it was exhausting. I always had to clean a little, prepare something to eat, and look somewhat decent. With my second one - I realized that it all can wait. I do not have the capacity to pick up the constant mess my kids are making. I do not want to think about what to prepare for dinner and then cook for extra people. I just want to have peaceful, undisturbed days until it gets easier. And I know it will get easier. And then we will party again.
4. Finding my crowd
Speaking of the previous point, isolation is not the key either.
Before my second baby was born, I somewhat thought that we would not have so much time to spend together with my sister. She has 3 little kids, I have two. No way we will be able to find time for each other. Turned out we are the best crowd!
We are two mothers who know how hard this is and we can always have each other’s back. We take turns making food, we watch each other’s kids, and we can hold or put babies down for a nap. We don't care how we look, when was the last time we washed our hair, or if there is something on our shirts. We couldn't care less about all the toys on the ground. Our kids play together, we can laugh about our everyday life situations and everything seems so much easier.
Motherhood is so much easier if there is an understanding of how hard it actually is.
But if you want to help a mother of young children, make her and her family a tasty dinner (do NOT ask her what she would want and give her a gift of making one decision less) or bring her a snack and go home.
