You Need Help (and that’s not an insult)
When you reflect on how you were parented, do you ever examine this through the lens of responsibilities?
Meaning, have you ever considered the ways in which your parents met, or failed to meet, their responsibilities to you?
I think that one of the biggest reasons that most of us are breaking cycles as parents, is because we want to do better when it comes to assuming our responsibilities to our children.
And as you know, there are SO MANY parental responsibilities for us to assume: emotional, material, physical, educational, and financial to name a few.
When I think of my dad’s story, I know that he went above and beyond the financial responsibilities that his own father didn't meet for him and his four siblings.
You see, my dad had it rough growing up. As a result of my grandfather’s parental neglect, followed by an early death, my dad and his brothers had to start working as children to help provide for their mother and younger siblings.
When he became a father himself, he took the importance of meeting his financial obligations so seriously, that until his last breath, we never had to worry about him financially. I remember how he ended every phone conversation with me asking if I was “okay” and reminding me that I should always come to him if I needed "a little help". And even after his passing, we were not surprised to find that he had left the funeral expenses entirely covered, plus some of those last financial decisions that can be so hard for family members to have to make.
As his daughter, the pressure I feel to do the same for my own child can feel immense at times.
But here’s the thing, Gabriela. I now understand that only one part of the reason for my dad's ability to break the cycle of poverty that he came from, was due to factors within his control. Meaning, it wasn’t only because of his values, his work ethic, his willingness, his interest in learning and trying new things, his responsibility and his honesty as a businessman that he was able to make enough money to support us. (Although all of these things are true of him, and I admire them greatly).
It was also because he was lucky. At some point early on in his gardening business, he did an excellent job for a client who could pay him well–and refer him to others who would also pay him well, for years to come. In addition, he had a loyal, hard working and very skilled right hand man by his side, with whom he could take on more work, do a consistently excellent job, and thrive.
And so, it was because of his own will and qualities, as well as the luck of having high paying clients and an excellent team, that my dad broke the cycle of financial scarcity that he came from. In the end, he was able to meet his financial responsibilities to us, and more.
Conversely, my dad was often unable to fulfill his emotional responsibilities to us. Based on his own reflections later in life, I know that he lacked not only the information, the will, and the interest in learning to do this, but he also had pretty unlucky circumstances.
He did not have help by way of example or friends or relatives who modeled what it looked like for a father to attend to his children’s emotional needs. He was not taught that he had any responsibility in this way beyond feeling love for us and not repeating the violence that was present in his childhood home. He did not have people to help him emotionally so that he could help himself with his own healing. Nor did he have someone to support him with the teachings and tools needed to meet his emotional responsibilities to us.
Lucky for us and for him, at least in his final years he was able to do some of these things with the help of old age, therapy, children who had also done our own healing work, and grandchildren who were open to receiving his love.
When you think about your own parenting, my guess is that you have the will and desire to provide for every possible one of your child’s needs. Not just the financial, material and physical–but also for their emotional wellbeing. You want them to be able to thrive in every way.
If you are like me, I am guessing that you value responsibility a lot.
I also guess that oftentimes you notice that it simply isn't enough to value owning your responsibilities in order to actually be able to fulfill your parental ones well.
For many parents, it can be difficult, painful, and at times frustrating, when you are confronted with this reality.
Today I want to share some insight to help during the hard moments where you struggle to assume your responsibilities as your child’s parent.
I'll use a personal example of one parental responsibility that scares me a lot: being able to provide for my daughter, Luna, financially on my own.
Ever since I separated from her dad and decided to start my own business, I have been in some pretty tight money situations and found myself struggling and stressed as I try to meet all of my financial obligations as her parent.
And what I have learned is that when I decide to name the situation for what it is, I can more quickly move through the necessary acceptance and grief that gets me to my clear and effective thinking about it.
If I can name it to a listener who cares about my needs and my parenting journey, even better. (100 times better, in fact.)
Quite simply, this can sound like saying, “I can’t assume all of my financial responsibilities as Luna's mom.”
A proponent of growth mindset might encourage me to change that sentence to,
“I can't assume all of my financial responsibilities as Luna's mom YET.”
But the thing is, Gabriela, this may never be the case. Even though I really value and really want to meet those responsibilities; and even though I work extremely hard at my job and am very good at it–I may never be able to fulfill my financial responsibilities to my child on my own.
And it’s that last part, about doing it on my own, that brought me to this most recent realization around our struggles as parents to assume our responsibilities to our children.
What is most true about my struggle to support her financially, is that “I can't assume all of my financial responsibilities to Luna ALONE.”
And even though I was raised in a society that says we should all assume our responsibilities alone–I don’t think we are actually supposed to. It's astonishing to me that that so many of us feel that we are supposed to do this alone. And it is wrong that so many of us have to in any way at all.
How is anyone supposed to know all there is to know and have access to all of the resources necessary to cover for the many expenses that having a child entails?
Furthermore, what has become so clear to me after years of working with parents of myriad circumstances and backgrounds, is that aside from the financial, not a single part of our parenting responsibilities are meant to be assumed alone.
So many mothers–single or partnered–are carrying a weighty list of responsibilities that they feel they are failing at because society lets them carry that weight on their own.
We are trying to assume our parenting responsibilities in a society that uses the expression, “You need help” as an insult.
But I am here today to tell you that indeed, you do need help, and that this is not as an insult, but rather a sacred honoring of your humanity.
Just because our culture grossly underestimates the amount of resources that need to go into caring for people–especially people in vulnerable circumstances such as childhood, old age, or disability–does not make it untrue that caring for people takes an immense amount of resources.
Resources that are scarce for the family where…
The parents struggle to make ends meet financially, or
The parents do not have nearby people that they trust to help with the physical and emotional care of their children,
The parents do not have enough information, capacity or support to take on the emotional responsibilities that come with raising human children,
The parents do not have the emotional skills and resources to sustain the strains and pressures of a romantic partnership,
The parents do not have the time or space to let the stress and emotions of day to day life to be processed and settle.
All of the above are extremely common struggles that parents today face, and they are just a few manifestations of how our society fails us.
And having grown up in this society, it is often true that we all have strained relationships to the idea of receiving help.
For example, I am guessing that in your childhood home, you were not taught to center the act of receiving help in the context of mutual support.
And yet, the most self-aware parents that I have seen over the years are strong in their endeavor to assume their parental responsibilities, due in great part to leaning in hard to the practice of “getting help.”
You see, they are able to be more responsible because they know how to ask for help.
Because you know what? Help heals.
Not only do we all need help, but as social creatures we flourish when we feel that we belong to a group that practices giving and receiving help often.
Which is why it is fundamental to provide our children with homes that feel like help.
When the teacher pressures, the friends tease or exclude, and the internet tells them they are not enough; home is where they are helped, seen and reminded of their worthiness.
Homes that feel like help are led by parents who get help often; allowing the children to trust that other adults are caring about their parents' needs, and therefore rest in the role of simply being children.
Furthermore, receiving help also helps their capacity to grow, their self-awareness to deepen, and the real changes to happen in their parenting.
Our healing is strengthened when we refuse to do it alone. And so is our parenting.
If you want to know about what it looks like when you center healing help in your home, I’ll be sharing more at next Friday’s free webinar: A Home That Heals.
Be sure to get your free ticket below.
Free Webinar: A Home That Heals
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