We’re Not Fine
It’s no secret that moms are overwhelmed. We’ve been discussing the fact that women take on the brunt of parenting responsibilities compared to men for ages. But the truth is that the problem doesn’t start at the point in time that a child pops on the scene. It doesn’t begin when tasks suddenly appear, time runs too thin, or schedules get busy.
The problem of being burnt out, overburdened, and holding up the world with one hand while being told to just relax and pamper yourself didn’t start when two people moved in together and split up the chores. So why do we keep trying to fix it from there? Why do we keep telling women they should do less or ask for help when we’ve been trained since the time we were little to do it all, and take it all on the chin, and keep saying everything is fine? Because that’s when it starts—when we are daughters.
When we moved in with my grandma during my junior year of high school, I learned firsthand how the superpower (or Achilles heel?) developed in my family. She told stories of moving regularly with four young children every time my grandpa got a new job. She spoke proudly of how they moved into a new house on Christmas Eve one year, and my grandpa went straight to work. By the time he got home for dinner, she had the boxes organized, the Christmas tree up and decorated, and the dinner on the table. I can only imagine the message my mom and her other kids received in that scenario. It wasn’t told as part of the story, but I can picture my grandma with a tight-lipped smile and hands full of rage, acting as if she not only knew just what to do but was happy to do it. That she was fine doing it all alone.
I imagine my grandma experienced similar situations long before she got married and had children, when she was young. Her mother, my great-grandmother, Dorothy, whom I often visited in the nursing home as a child with my mom and Grandma, was always smiling; she was the gentlest soul you would ever meet. At least at that stage in her life, when there was nothing left to do but sit in a wheelchair and pretend to remember the people coming to see you. What struggles had she forged while learning the shape of her smile?
I understand the evolution now, the learned and adaptive trait of doing what needs to be done without asking for help, complaining, or pausing to wonder, “Should I do this?” or “Do I have a different choice?” Because women didn’t have another choice in the past. They didn’t have power. But we do now. Or at least we have more power, more voice, more spaces, and more places, and we exist as whole humans with rights, needs, and wants. For now, at least. We have more doors open to us than our mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. We might still throw up the Christmas tree and give the kids a beautiful holiday as best, but we don’t have to pretend we’re fine and paste smiles on our faces the whole time. We owe it to our daughters to stop doing it all. We have to stop saying, “I just hate asking for help.” We hate doing it because the women before us didn’t have help, couldn’t ask, and we learned their rules. Now, it’s our job to break them and make new ones. Rules that teach our daughters to question expectations set upon them. To not only explore and access their emotions but also express them in situations that don’t feel good or healthy. To stop and ask themselves how they feel in the first place and to listen to that truth, not whatever someone else is telling them.
The truth is that girls are taught to “go along and get along.” We can carry the weight of the world for years before acknowledging the ache in our backs and the hunch in our stance. But that doesn’t mean we should. The ingrained lessons we learned can change, but we have to start re-teaching our girls now. If we wait until they are mothers, they will do what we do – and they will feel just as ignored, overlooked, used, abandoned, and burnt out.
If this sounds like a massive hurdle, it’s not. I assure you. It will take time, though, and practice. And it starts with the phrase, “I am not fine with this, and I don’t want to do it anymore.” It starts with throwing out the paste and letting our lips falter and frown. Our faces are our stories, and should reveal when we’re angry, sad, and confused. Yes, moms, it’s okay to say, “I’m mad,” modeling for our daughters and, just as importantly, our sons, that sadness can be healthy and appropriate. Anger can be a safe and powerful agent for change when we find ourselves in situations that force us to be small, that make us feel lonely and isolated, and that insult our souls.
The thing is, sharing our emotions makes kids feel safer than when we pretend everything is fine. They can see when our words don’t match our eyes, our hands, our bodies. They can tell when we’re lying, and it makes them feel crazy. It teaches them to lie, pretend, and paste on smiles, too. Instead, let’s say, “I’ll feel better soon. Maybe after I talk it through, make some changes, or ask for help. But right now, I’m not fine.”
I think we’re getting closer; I think we’re learning more about our mental health and our emotional needs than ever before. It seems simple, but it’s still oh so hard. We can do hard things, though. We can share with our children the stirs of everything inside us at any time while reassuring them that our emotions do not crush us.
They carry us.
