What to do When You Need Help as a Mom
"For the love of God, woman, ask for help!"
Sometimes a sinkful of dirty dishes at the end of a very long day makes me want to cry, and when that happens, I hear these words echoing in my mind. I just need to ask for help. My husband and friends tell me this all the time, but so often I just don't know how, and I know it hinders our family's togetherness factor.
It's been a major hang-up for me for a while now, and a quick Google search tells me that I'm in good company - really good company. By just typing the words "moms asking for help", the page spit out something from almost every major media outlet. (More on that later.)
Lots of moms don't know how to ask for help, but unless we want to burn out and become total mom-zillas, we better figure it out.
Like most people who have a major hang-up, I blame this on something that happened when I was a kid. I don't know what happened exactly, but somewhere along the way while growing up I started resenting the ten million times every day I was called on to get something for someone. "Hand me my purse" or "Bring me my pen" became dirty words to me, and I started thinking that everyone should just take care of themselves and stop bossing other people around - especially kids.
So I started out like a lot of women, doing all the mama things and taking on a whole host of housework and chores to boot. I had help along the way for sure, but I was always so guarded, insisting I should be able to do it all on my own. Now that I'm older, though, I'm discovering that there are so many times I actually do need help, and because of that pesky hang-up, I really don't know how to ask for it.
I try to do everything on my own, and my heart grows bitter, resentful, and full of delusions of martyrdom - a recipe for the opposite of family togetherness if I ever saw one.
The weird thing is that my husband actually loves to cook and is great at it, and my kids are older now and pretty phenomenal at helping with cleaning, cooking, laundry, and all sorts of other things, and they need to learn how to do those things before they launch into college anyway. So why do I still feel like I should be the one doing it all?
As you can tell, this is something that has been bothering me for a while now. On the really good nights, I pop on my noise-canceling headphones and listen to an audiobook while I tackle the overflowing sink of dirty dishes and tidy up the house for the next day, and then I cheerfully ask the boys to put away the dishes while I take a long, hot shower. I'm thankful to have a family to cook for and to have kids still living at home making messes to clean up, and I let my face show them how thankful I am for them.
But on the really bad nights, I stand at the sink staring listlessly out the window wondering why everyone else gets to have fun watching Netflix or playing video games for hours while I'm stuck in the kitchen making dinner and cleaning up after it. Then, I get myself so worked up that I do all the chores myself, refusing everyone who offers to help but huffing and puffing enough to make everyone else miserable, and then I take a quick shower before collapsing into bed. (You think I'm exaggerating, but my husband can tell you I'm not.)
So how can we find a way to ask for help so that our family togetherness can get back to being top-notch?
As usual, there's help on the internet. So I took that Google search page and plucked out the best ones according to me in case you might need help asking for help too.
Here's what I found (click for links to the articles):
Asking for help is letting someone else use their gifts too.
Asking for help can be a sign of generosity and courage - not weakness.
I'm going to dig into the wisdom of these articles this week, and I'm determined to make a change.
Will you join me?
Because our families are definitely worth overcoming this fear of asking for help, aren't they?
How do you ask for help in a way that's not snippy, mean, or demanding?
Hop into our email group and share!