The Insatiable Heat - Addressing Anxiety Avoidance

We are in the midst of a wildly uncomfortable 90-100 degree heatwave that forecasters  reported, “feels like 115-120.”  Absolutely unbearable.  Just walking outside, not even working mind you, I was dripping in sweat.  I believe, “sticky” is the adjective used to describe it. For good reason, we try to avoid the “sticky” discomfort of extreme heat by escaping indoors and into air conditioned spaces.  No one wants to experience that level of discomfort.  

Although no one in their right mind would argue with the avoidance of  the insatiable late August Nebraska heatwaves, it got me to thinking, what level of avoidance in other areas of our lives, should we be more inclined NOT to avoid.  

I’ve thought extensively about avoidance, particularly anxiety or discomfort avoidance, not only as a therapist, but as a parent.  I’m nearly always in a state of reflection about whether or not I’m adequately preparing my children for the big bad uncomfortable world that they will one day have to navigate independently.  Am I too harsh?  Am I too easy?  Am I doing everything that I can do to ensure that they have the skill set to thrive in an often inconsistent and unpredictable world?  To date, it seems that my efforts have been focused on creating consistency and predictability, which all seems futile now.   

Maybe it’s about balance.   

I totally understand that if something makes you anxious or uncomfortable, why wouldn’t you avoid it, right? Mostly right? But not always right? Hmm…

Consistently using avoidance as a method of anxiety reduction can obviously become problematic. Avoidance allows a temporary reprieve from anxiety, but in nearly all cases, the problem still exists and therefore, the discomfort still exists.  

So, the question is, how do we find that balance? To what degree do we allow ourselves to avoid and at what point, do we push through the “sticky” discomfort of actually addressing our problem?  

This idea has been at the forefront of my parental brain for the last several years. How do we identify that sweet spot of parental balance of when and how to encourage our children to push through the normal but uncomfortable childhood experiences?  Or, do we as parents, generationally, continue to assume the anxieties of our children or allow them to avoid, seemingly influencing their ability (or inability) to manage the age appropriate anxieties and discomfort that they should experience?  

And…if I’m doing a completely honest parental self-assessment, I have to approach this topic with a “do as I say, not as I do,” mentality because I am 100% guilty of fostering an environment of avoidance with my own children.  Case in point, anyone who knows me, knows that I generally make 2-3 different meals for supper each night because of what my children will and won’t eat.  They are uncomfortable with foods they don’t like. Sometimes, they use multiple plates, so their food doesn’t touch and last but certainly not least, I cut the crust off of bread.  There, I said it and trust me, I know, I’ve created my own picky eating monsters.  

So, with this said, how do we not overwhelm, but not underwhelm, because I fully recognize that not allowing our children to experience anxiety isn’t doing them any favors in the long run.  As with anything, too few experiences with anxiety leads to an inability to manage it later on in life. 

I bring this to our attention, unfortunately, with no intention of providing any answers, but more so, to initiate a conversation.  To shed light on a generational pattern that I’ve been made aware of through my own parental experience and through therapeutic conversations with other parents.  Why has it become a pattern for us as parents to rescue our children from experiencing the anxiety that we went through as children and that made us the seemingly capable adults that we are today?  Or, are we more self-serving than we’d like to admit and does the discomfort of seeing our own children experience anxiety cause us to rescue them?  

As my “Boomer” mother bluntly puts it, “you just care more about the experience of your children than I ever did about yours,” and as insensitive as that might sound, to some degree, I think she has a point.  How do we care a bit less?  Maybe not to the degree of the parental carelessness that I might call my own parents out for, but maybe the pendulum can land a bit more in the middle and not in either extreme of “children should be seen and not heard” but also not the extreme of current generational trends of anxiety and discomfort avoidance and rescuing.  

I know that this is a very “sticky” conversation and one that we need to carefully consider, as each of our children has very unique needs.  Consider for yourself and your family, how the balancing act of approaching or avoiding anxiety can highly influence your child’s ability to manage “the insatiable heat” that they encounter in the future. 

Cheers to 50 Years

On August 4th, my parents will celebrate 50 years of marriage. A half century spent together. An absolute rarity, nowadays.

Cheers to 50 Years, or so the saying goes.

The irony with the aforementioned saying though, is that my parents won’t be “cheers-ing” celebratory drinks as my dad hasn’t had a drink in well over 30 years. One of the many obstacles that my parents have had to overcome together. Now, don’t get me wrong, they will still celebrate. My mom will have her occasional gin sour and my dad, most likely a Dr. Pepper.

Interesting to note, my dad is a pretty social guy and on numerous occasions, I recall being told by people/friends (who obviously don’t know him that well) that they saw him out and about, being so funny and goofy that he must have been intoxicated and I get to tell them that, that’s the way he behaves, completely sober.

My parents “love story,” if you will, is unlike many of their time. My dad was a first generation Filipino American, raised with his 6 siblings by a single mom who immigrated here at 19 years old from the Philippines during World War II. His dad, an Irish American/Nebraskan, had left the family after struggling with his own issues with alcoholism. (In case anyone was wondering why a bunch of biracial Filipinos had the Irish last name of Dougherty.)

My dad worked as a hired man for my mom’s dad, Grandpa Jim, when he was a teenager. Although they knew one another when they were young, they didn’t actually date until my mom was 16 and my dad was (gasp) 23 and recently back from serving as an Army Paratrooper in the Vietnam War. For anyone from my hometown, they met at what was formerly known as the Seger’s Truck Stop.

Although I have yet to hear all the details, I’m not entirely sure Grandpa Jim was super excited about the idea of them dating, much less getting married. So much so that he refused to sign the consent documentation for her and my dad to get married when she was only 18. So, being the sassy and stubborn woman she’s always been, she turned 19 on August 2nd and got married without the need for consent, just two days later.

From what I’ve heard, the rural mid-west in the early 70’s, wasn’t especially keen on what would then be considered an interracial marriage…and other than a few well deserved bar fights that resulted as such, it was yet another obstacle that they seemingly overcame together and one that I am incredibly proud of them for. I know that couldn’t have been easy for them.

In fact, the odds were stacked against this marriage from the get go. They were so young. They came from different backgrounds. They were poor. Did I mention how young they were?

Young and dumb, lol. Well maybe just my dad. I once heard the story of the night before the wedding. My dad went out drinking with his best man and their car broke down out in the country. They had no other choice than to walk home and my dad said he was “tired,” and took a nap on a bridge. When my Filipino grandma awoke and my dad was nowhere to be found the morning of his wedding, apparently she said, “That son of a bitch took off on his wedding day.” Again, to anyone that knew my 4ft tall, 90lb Filipino grandma, she didn’t mince words. Alas, he had not run off, but merely had a bit too much fun and had a bit of a hangover on his wedding day, now 50 years in the rearview.

In the years that followed, they had a couple of moves. My mom finished nursing school, had a successful career as an RN and is now retired. My dad had a variety of jobs, owned his own trucking business, owned a feed store for a while and ultimately took over the management of the family farm. Now, because the family farm is from my mom’s side, my dad (teasingly) says his “management” will make him work until he dies. Cue my mom’s eye roll.

They had five children and now have 13 grandchildren.

I wouldn’t say the last 50 years for them has been super hard, but I certainly wouldn’t say it’s been easy either..and..as proud as I am of the commitment that they have made to one another and the obstacles that they have overcome, I think my siblings and I can all agree that there are things we might do differently. Nonetheless, and in order not to piss my mom off, I’d like to share a few integral lessons that I feel are quintessentially who they are and the reasons why they have made it thus far.

Lesson 1. Fight

Weird right, but hear me out. My parents, for lack of better words, are fighters. They just are. They’ve had to be to make it to where they are today. I understand that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they also fight with one another. They are competitive with one another, especially when it comes to playing cards. They are rude to one another and they will not let the other live it down if the other does something wrong. One of the most impressive qualities in all of this is that they haven’t taken one another out…yet…but I’m not ruling it out as a possibility. What I’ve learned from them though, is that sometimes, it’s worth having the fight. You need to fight it out, because if you aren’t, there is something that isn’t being said and it’s a scary thing to be in a place with your husband or wife where you become indifferent and no longer have the energy or will to share how you feel. I will say, in the very least, not one person could ever say that either of my parents was indifferent about sharing how they feel about something. (Can we all collectively nod our heads in solidarity.) I don’t necessarily love seeing my mother angrily talk through gritted teeth or my dad communicating solely through a barrage of curse words, but I’d rather see that than the alternative and as much as I don’t personally like to fight, I understand that it comes from a place of trusting one another enough to be honest with how you feel.

Lesson 2. Take Care of People

If you are ever stranded on the side of the road, pray to God that it is one of my parents that drives by. No seriously, my mom once picked up a complete stranger in a snowstorm on her way home from work and because there was no way for her to get their car out of the ditch, she just took them home with her and they stayed there for three days, until the roads had cleared enough to get them back home. Who does that? It stresses me to no end that my mom could put herself in a potentially dangerous situation, but it literally doesn’t even phase her. One of my dad’s favorite stories is how he and his buddy, Lee, came across two young girls who had got their car stuck in a snow drift while (most likely) road tripping. My dad and Lee dug them out so that the two girls didn’t have to tell their parents what happened. (Don’t worry girls, I won’t disclose any names.)

And, it’s not just roadside rescues, my mom was a trusted nurse in our community and has helped so many with their healthcare needs. She would make house calls on a regular basis and took such great pride in providing support and medical advice when needed. I recall once when my dad owned his feed store, and he delivered feed to a farmer who became sick and was unable to pay, but needed his cows fed.

I say this not because they want acknowledgement or attention, in fact, quite the opposite. I say this because they wouldn’t. They do for others because it is the right thing to do and it is one of the most important lessons that I’ve taken from them.

Lesson 3. Love of God and Love of Country

These two drive me crazy sometimes and definitely have their faults, but their love of God and love of country is unwavering and has always been a priority in their relationship. I remember growing up, my mom insisted that we made it to mass no matter the circumstances. We were nearly always late and our family was so big, we often had to sit in different pews. Like clockwork, my dad would pull into the gravel parking lot across from the church and complain about how these GD Catholics couldn’t seem to figure out how to park. Even when it would have been closer, easier and less expensive to go to a different high school, my parents chose to send us to a Catholic High School, because of the importance of a faith based education.

As a Vietnam War vet, my dad has a great respect for all service men and women and the sacrifices that they have made. It’s been ingrained in me to always be attentive and respectful during the National Anthem. Once again, my dad’s buddy Lee tells the story of a time when they were in a bar and a much younger (and stronger) man was being loud and unruly during the National Anthem and my dad approached him and asked him to kindly respect the National Anthem, because of how much it meant to him and his comrades that weren’t so lucky to come home from war. To Lee’s great relief, the man apologized and quickly changed his behavior.

I’m the first to tell you that these two and their 50 years of marriage are not perfect. Far from it in fact, but, I challenge you to find a marriage that is. To have overcome the obstacles of the last 50 is nothing short of a miracle and yet here they are…literally in this exact moment, my dad bitching about how he has to do the dishes more often and how my mom buys too much crap from Amazon.

When I asked my mom what she is most proud of after 50 years, she said raising five children and being a part of the lives of her 13 grandchildren. When I asked my dad, he told me he is proud that he has endured 50 years of my mom’s attitude.

Lesson 4. Understand the role that humor has to play in a marriage after a half century. :)

To mom and dad from all five of us, we love you and are happy to share this very special occasion with you. So..raise your gin sour or Dr. Pepper and Cheers to 50 Years.

An Ode to Volunteer Coaches: I Get It Now

I get it now.  I get why people do it.  Being a coach, that is.

Now, I don’t want to misrepresent my coaching resume.  Only recently, have I volunteered to coach for a couple youth sports teams in my small town community.  I'm hardly qualified, other than having the ability to wrangle children.

I have, however, been fortunate to have had some really great coaches in my life, but for some reason, until recently, I never felt compelled to be one.  I don’t really know why.  I love to compete, and even more so, I love to win.   

To transition from competitor to coach, seems like a very natural progression.  In retrospect, and if I’m being completely honest with myself, I wonder if this specific transition, in and of itself, was hard? Likely, it was a huge shift in identity. 

It’s not about me anymore.  

I’m also not proud to admit, but I even liken it to a type of control issue.  One where, you can control yourself, but you can’t control the actions, effort, success or lack thereof, of someone else.    

It takes a selfless person to pour their energy into someone else, FOR someone else and for what? The hours are bad and the pay is even worse, so seriously, why would anyone do it? 

And as soon as I asked myself that question, I was immediately able to answer it.  

It’s for them.  

I’ve learned that time changes you…and more than anything, being a parent changes you.

Your everyday norm is pouring energy into others who could care less about your identity formation and control issues, so I guess you could say parenthood probably prepares many to be coaches and you know what, I’m here for it.  

I get it now.  

I get why it is so fulfilling to see someone work hard to accomplish their goals. 

I get why it is so fulfilling to give of yourself to try to make someone else better.  

I get why it is so fulfilling to be a small part in someone else’s success and how that can foster a sense of joy that is nearly impossible to explain.  

 

I didn’t get it before, but I get it now and I’m so glad I did.  

A quick thank you to all my fellow volunteer coaches and for all the coaches I've had in my life.

The Santa Talk

I had “the talk” with my son.  

Oh wait, God no, not "that talk,” I had another talk with my son. 

I had “the Santa talk" and let me tell you, it did not go according to plan.  

I’m going to tell you something that might sound a bit boasty. I take a lot of pride in the level of thought that I put into my parental decisions.  Probably a bit too much, but as I often say to my children, there are a lot of things that you can accuse me of, however, the one thing you can never accuse me of, is not trying or not thinking about the decisions that I made as a parent.  

It just so happens that my thoughts on how to handle this talk were very, very wrong.  

I thought my son knew or at least kinda knew.  I mean, he’s 10, going on 11, and in 5th grade.  He was starting to ask questions. I knew other parents who had already had this talk.  I justified this talk by telling myself that I was protecting him from being teased when he returned to school and potentially asked friends about what Santa got them for Christmas.  

I thought taking my son out to a public restaurant to have this talk was a good idea. I thought that I would take him away from the chaos of home; make it special for him.  I’ll get right to the point.  It wasn’t.  

I was wrong.  I thought I said all the right things, but in my misinformed haste to protect him from his friends at school who could potentially tease him, little did I know, I was the one he needed to be protected from.  I haphazardly and selfishly destroyed his still intact belief.  

His response made my stomach turn with guilt.  

He stared oddly into the distance, picked at his plain hamburger, shook his head and said, “it doesn’t matter what you say, I still believe.”  

I had no response. For him, I’m sure it was a bit weird because I had nothing to say, and believe me, I usually have lots to say.  Not one part of me, ahead of this talk, took into account the grief that he could potentially experience.  

He quickly ate his fries and afterward, started messing with the wax paper in the fry basket. It’s like he didn’t know what to do with himself or his hands.  I noticed tears welling up in the corner of his eyes and I had an overwhelming sense of regret. He asked if we could leave and I immediately complied. I could feel the shame he felt for starting to cry and my own shame for putting him in this uncomfortable situation.   

I thought that I owed it to him, to give him the information he needed not to be blindsided at school.  I thought it was better if I told him before he found out from his friends at school.  Maybe this was more about me, wanting to control the narrative.  At this point, I don’t know what’s right or wrong, but I knew that I needed to right this somehow.  

We got home and my husband was waiting with a sensitive and supportive demeanor.  I had texted him while at the restaurant that it wasn’t going well.  Something to the tune of, “Mayday, Mayday, we have tears, high distress, must evacuate.”  

I took him to our bedroom to allow him the space to cry, to be angry about taking him to a public restaurant to tell him “the bad news,” and to allow him to ask any questions he had.  

I’m proud to say that I kinda (not entirely) but kinda redeemed myself.  

We got the chance to talk about the idea of Santa and how it is so much bigger than ourselves.  How it teaches us to believe in something so incredibly unbelievable and to have faith in that which we can’t see or even fully understand.  How it also teaches us about sacrifice and the idea of fostering joy (even when you don’t get the credit for it.)  

I heard his grief and I got the chance to tell him mine.  Just as I didn’t fully understand his grief, my son didn’t fully understand mine.  He didn’t understand how difficult it was for me to know that he was at a stage in his development that he was ready to even have this talk.  That as a parent, you grieve the loss of this beautiful and innocent belief in something so magical.  

The mood started to lighten when I told him about how difficult he had made it for my husband and I, because he always wanted and asked for these rare and often discontinued LEGO sets that were nearly impossible to find. The amount of online searching in shady, back alley, virus laden LEGO sites to find the atrociously expensive LEGO Star Wars Death Star that cost us (shakes my head) over $700 just to give the gosh dang credit to someone else.  I think, in all honesty, he found a bit of humor in our misery, but I’ll take it if that makes this whole talk better for the both of us.  

At the time that we were talking, our youngest, was trying to come into the room and was being his typical goofy and misbehaved self.  I turned to my older son and said, “I need your help with that one,” pointing to our youngest and smiling.  I could sense a shift and you could tell, there was a new sense of purpose brewing within.  I told him, “Now you're on our team and we need you now more than ever.”  

It had been a very long and emotional evening for the both of us and as I tucked my son into bed and fought back my own tears, I told him, “I just want you to know that it has been my honor to be Santa to you.  The joy that you felt in receiving, pales in comparison to the joy that I felt in giving.”   

I think he gets it now.  

And as for that “other” talk……that is going to have to wait a while.  

A fork in the road....or drawer

 

Look at this picture, what do you see? Forks right? Or more specifically, forks for little hands.  

Here’s what I see. The passage of time, perhaps. Grief. The grief that accompanies loss. Maybe not loss in the typical sense, but more so, the loss of the baby and toddler stages, all wrapped into a few small but colorful gripper-laden utensils.  

Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but it’s been a day.  Not only did my youngest, my baby, go to his first day of preschool today, but then, to add insult to injury, he felt the need to come home and ride his bike with zero help.  I mean, this little a$$hole may as well just chew up my heart and spit it out on the concrete slab, where he so arrogantly rides said bike, without a care in the world.  Meanwhile, I’m over here wondering, how did this happen?  Where did the years go? When did he grow up? 

The forks may as well be anything that becomes obsolete with time.  Fun fact, I’ve had those forks since my oldest was a baby and he’s now 10. For a decade, give or take, those forks have been in the drawer and I’ve thought more about them in the last few days than I have for the last ten years. I now realize that there are many things you think nothing of, until that is, they aren’t needed anymore.  It was a day in our not so recent past that my son told me, “I want a big fork now.”  

With the “last,” the baby/toddler stuff starts to make its way out of your home.  Baby swings, among many other things, become obsolete when your baby can sit up and move more freely. Bottles and sippy cups replaced with cups where lids are no longer necessary.  I feel like, sometimes within a day, something that was once so important to you or your child’s daily routine, is no longer needed.  

At least one time per year, the kids and I do a mass donation of toys and items that are no longer used and I’ve always had a difficult time understanding their reasoning for keeping toys that they no longer played with. “Why keep it? It’s just sitting there.”  And as I am struggling to get rid of this baby/toddler stuff that is no longer in use, I now understand.  It’s this stuff, that transports you to another time, that you will no longer get to experience. A sense of nostalgia for moments that you didn’t realize were so fleeting.  For me, it is acknowledging that this stage of my life is coming to a close and I have to realize that holding on to these little forks isn’t going to change that.   

Now, I’m definitely not shedding any tears over the big bulky bouncers that I was constantly either stubbing my foot on or tripping over, but I am struggling with the significance of these damn forks. Begrudgingly onward to full grown “big forks” and appetites to match.    

With my youngest going to preschool (and also apparently riding his bike) I’m making an unusual parallel between myself and the forks. We’ve obviously learned that stuff can become obsolete, but can I?  Am I becoming obsolete as a mother? Am I no longer needed? 

My rational brain tells me that is absolutely absurd.  

My irrational brain tells me that I might as well put myself in the donation bin, because I no longer have any use in this family.  

These two parts of my brain are often in conflict.  

There were three other times in my life where I can specifically recall this exact same feeling.  It was when I stopped nursing each of my three children.  My irrational brain really took the reins at those moments in my life and I recall crying to my husband saying that I no longer had purpose if I wasn’t nursing my babies.  Obviously in retrospect, I can rationally understand how silly that was, but here I am, doing it again.    

I am now needing to redefine my role as a mother in order to stay relevant.  I am no longer the mother of babies.  I am the mother of preschool, elementary and soon to be middle school age kids and although their needs are different, I have to believe that they still, INDEED, need me.  

To what extent they need me, I’m still learning.  I am learning when to lean in and when they need to learn on their own.  I’m learning to trust it when they say, “Mom, I can do it,”  and to take pride in their independence, rather than fearing it. 

“A fork in the road” is a metaphor to explain the idea of making a decision between two separate paths.  My path as a mother is full of uncertainty, but what I can say, with 100% certainty, is that I will never choose the path of becoming obsolete.  I promise to wholeheartedly choose the path of being the mother that my children need me to be at any stage of their life. Let’s eat together tonight with the big forks.  

Hit By A Truck

Some days it just feels like you have been hit by a truck.  Am I right? 

In our case, or more specifically in the case of our house, it was, indeed, hit by a truck.  

I have with no level of certainty the origin of the phrase, nonetheless, it seems pretty self explanatory.  To figuratively say you feel like you were hit by a truck would mean you feel a negative force or strong negative energy directed at you that creates or sustains discomfort.  

In a more literal sense, or more specifically with our house, it means, a roll off dumpster truck without the e-brake on, rolls off another property, through your driveway and yard, aimlessly and without a driver, where your kids were playing 20 minutes earlier, crashes into the foundation of your home, a sizable chunk is blown off and your well head ripped out of the ground, until said truck finally stopped, because it runs into a tree in your backyard. Phew, that was a mouthful. 

It seems that many of us are having these difficult days, where we feel that figurative truck crashing into us and leaving us uncomfortable or quite possibly, even damaged. Maybe I just think that way because I’m in mental health and thus, my perspective could be professionally skewed. Or maybe, there is something to it and I/we need to acknowledge that life is hard right now and dodging figurative dumpster trucks is getting to be more and more difficult.  

I’m guilty in my line of work offering the ever frustrating feedback that, even when days are difficult or times are tough, how can we find the silver lining, because it’s fundamentally a bad idea to foster a continued sense of hopelessness, right?  So, in the aforementioned example, the silver lining is…no one was hurt.  It could have been worse. Both of which are so incredibly true.  Instead of calling our insurance company and navigating the world of finding a contractor willing to fix our house, I could be navigating hospital visits or God forbid, even worse.  

The very busy contractor that found time to visit with us let us know that an engineer would need to provide feedback on ways to complete the repair in order to preserve the integrity of the foundation, which he is able to do, but indicated to us that the repair inevitably would not look like the original foundation. In his words, it would look like a “patch job.”   

I’m going to admit something.  I was mad at first.  I was really mad. I believe my narrative went something like, “Why us? Why in the hell would something so freaking random happen to us? What did we do to deserve this?”   

…but then something strange happened to change that narrative. When you either literally or figuratively get hit by a truck, it is the people around you that change that narrative and that is certainly the case for us.  Do you know how hard it is to stay mad or stay in a place of anger and self pity, when you have multiple neighbors and friends and family, offer for you to stay in their homes?  It is besides the point that the interior of our home was actually fine, but they were aware of the inconvenience of not having access to water due to the damaged well, and offered up their own homes.  We were able to take showers and do our laundry because so many were willing to help.   

Sometimes the process of going through something really does allow you to see the silver lining and helps to take you from a place of pity to a place of appreciation.  To go from being consumed with our own entitled experience to understanding and reflecting on the way in which we were rallied around.  

Our foundation took a hit and it will get fixed, just as we, as people,  take figurative “hits” every single day.  It is as though we are in a constant state of repair and although we also won’t look the same, the foundation of who we are is indeed, still the same. After all, aren’t we all just a “patch job” in human form, with remnants of our historical “hits” throughout our lives?  

So, if you are feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck, you can feel angry for a bit, but don't lose the ability to see the silver lining AND be sure to let someone know, because it is the people around you that can soften the blow.  

The Four Letter Word

Nope, it’s not what you think.

It’s not H..E..double hockey sticks, but it's close.

It’s a four letter word that makes all the mothers out there uncomfortable, especially when they have to say it out loud.

It is a four letter word that makes us feel like we can’t do it all or even worse, it makes us feel like we’ve failed.

It is a four letter word that elicits intense shame.

The four letter word that I’m talking about is….help. There I said it. HELP, and you know what? I need it. (insert shudder)

I’m not so naïve as to believe that I can do it all, but I am having a hard time with the fact that asking for help elicits something in me that insinuates the contrary. I’m not entirely sure what I have to prove or why asking for h..h..h..h..help is so hard. I mean, we can’t expect that we can do it all ourselves, right? Or do we? Gosh dang, it sure as hell seems like everyone else can do it all. (Please excuse my language. Other four letter words are much easier for me to say.)

What an interesting experience we have as women, as mothers, navigating this intense world of professional and personal obligations. A world that is ripe with double standards and toxic shame. A world where asking for help is likened to admitting some sense of failure.

I know that historically, this idea of unhealthy stoicism has been mostly attributed to men. However, I call your masculine stoicism and I raise you, to a working mother with numerous littles, taking them to the grocery store and preparing meals, hauling them to and from activities, surviving only on coffee and the occasional snack found in the console of the SUV or minivan….And you know what else, do it all with a warm smile and some lipstick, because heaven forbid you look like, how you feel.

I’ve tried to determine for myself, where does this insistence of self sufficiency come from? Where do we learn, or better yet, assume that it is all up to us, even in the presence of partners that are fundamentally good and willing to help. Is doing it ourselves a way for us to preserve our self worth and as a byproduct, we can have a sense of unattested control? Or, is it that by nature, we don’t want to put anyone else out. We don’t want anyone else to have to take care of us or our responsibilities.

Whatever it is, I challenge myself and many other mothers out there, to understand that families and communities thrive on their willingness to not only help others, but to be empathic towards self and to accept help when needed. To know that there are times in life when you are more able to help and there are times in your life when you need it….and that’s whole heartedly okay.

I assure you, there are other four letter words that are way (expletive) worse than help.