I Need Help

The three words to this entry's title are amazingly hard words to say. Lately I have been trying to teach Douwe and Karma to say these words to me instead of thinking their only option is screaming or kicking in frustration for trying out a new skill that is not quite all there yet, getting a shoe on, buckling stroller/carseat/booster-chair straps, assembling a train-track hill. It is important to give them time to try it and practice and follow through on their insistence "I can do it by myself!" which they love to say all day. But sometimes, they just need help!

I also have been giving a hard time to various people in my life who are adults and unwilling or unable to say those three words to me after I have invited them to ask me for help on occasion and have let them know I would enjoy helping in particular ways. Why don't they ask?

I have also been thinking about what the "accusing" voice inside my head starts saying if I take a risk and say the words to others: I need help.

I am one who thinks a lot about why we do what we do at the different ages we are. So the past months a lot of thinking about why it is so hard to ask for help at any age. Well the three words in the request can make this request vulnerable to a response that shames: "I?" Why do you always think about yourself? "Need?" There isn't enough time, energy or resources to meet your needs so deal with it. "Help?" You have to figure out a way to do it by yourself, I did!

A really great book I read in Douwe's early months, Let the Baby Drive, has a philosophy page on its website that asks so many questions that are relevant to the difficulty of being a caregiver. My own answer to that first paragraph of philosophical questions is pretty gloomy, partly because I wrote it as I was grieving last summer after Steve left us, when I realized that I had been trapped between shame and blame all summer when I didn't have enough stamina and skill to care for his urgent needs. When I was persistent in asking for help to various "support" people, many of them tried to shame me as being pushy or demanding or unrealistic. (Most of them were being stretched by an unreasonably large caseload of people to help.) When I lost my temper and smacked Steve, which was the catalyst for a lightning quick termination of his placement in my care, I was blamed for letting an argument escalate, losing my cool, breaking the rules, not being perfect etc. That experience taught me that many caregivers, mommies, nurses, teachers, anyone that has to regularly care for needy people, elderly, children, disabled, are often in a trap where there is not enough resources to meet all the needs but an expectation to meet all the needs anyway without 1. "losing it" and 2. without being a nuisance and asking for more support.

So last summer I wrote the below indictment against "the principalities and powers of this age that are in operation" which yes is gloomy, but there is truth to it, and I hope any caregiver of young children who is feeling trapped between shame and blame for feeling inadequate and overwhelmed in their role can see it is not their fault, and definitely not the fault of the needy people they are caring for, but a greater systemic flaw in human society that is in service to power and wealth rather than human needs. I think we are created to be interdependent, and even dependent at certain stages in our life, so why is there so much difficulty communicating a basic request that is part of interdependence . . "could you help me with this?"

Why are we feeling inadequate? Mommy, Teacher, Nurse, Social-Worker, be sure that it isn't your fault, you can't fix it by just doing better tomorrow. The larger system is what is inadequate and will probably always be, so all that blame and shame for failing to measure up is not on you.

If a family system, church, social agency, or economic system puts power and wealth before people, these are the unwritten rules that are operating:

This system is not structured for meeting the needs of people, especially children and their caregivers.

Children with unmet needs are wired to express them using vocalization, body language and actions. They will use increasingly distressing or disturbing behaviors if they are not receiving a response when they communicate needs.

Caregivers are expected by the system to use varying tactics of force, abandonment and shame to teach a child to be less needy. Some children do not take to this teaching well, and do not respond to the tactics.

If a caregiver fails to gain compliance from a child, or escalates the tactics of force, abandonment and shame in such a way that harms the child, the caregiver is blamed and shamed.

When a caregiver refuses to use tactics of force, abandonment, or shame on a child, there is a recognition that the caregiver will need significant help and support to be able to meet the needs of the child and continue to meet her own needs.

If a caregiver recognizes and asks for extra help and support, she is often blamed and shamed for being demanding, selfish, annoying, and overly needy. She is reminded to stop spoiling and coddling the child.

The bottom line: This system requires that caregivers and their children deny and minimize their own needs, accept and learn to perpetuate a role of greater compliance and self-sufficiency. Be warned that the system is prepared to punish or abandon those caregivers and children that persist in communicating their needs or escalate their methods of asking for help. Be warned that anyone who names or resists the above rules is engaging with a powerful force that will do what it takes to silence or squash non-compliant persons.

Yes it is gloomy, but I am not gloomy about this bad news (at least today), because the people are being and will be released from this trap, the destructive systems loyal to Mammon are doomed, and the power and abundance of resurrection life will overcome and heal.

Here's a song to the most en/theos/iastic Helper by a musician who often asked for help:

Psalm 86
A prayer of David.
Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
Guard my life, for I am devoted to you.
You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you.

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.

Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.

Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy.

In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.

Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.

All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God.

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

The arrogant are attacking me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life—
men without regard for you.

But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

Turn to me and have mercy on me; grant your strength to your servant
and save the son of your maidservant.

Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame,
for you, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.