On (Not) Asking for Help

I have never been very good at asking for help with anything.  If I don't know how to do something and I can't figure it out on my own, I generally skip it.   This is not my finest quality:  it makes me ornery and complicates things more than they need to be  (which only makes me ornerier).

For example, this week my husband is away for business.  It's not so bad, really, except for the hours between 6 and 8 pm, when The Girl is fussing and The Boy needs to be fed, bathed, and put to bed.   A friend--really more of an acquaintance--has offered to stop by tonight and help with bedtime.  Ordinarily, I would just say no thank you and move on, but tonight, I'd really, really like to say yes.  It would make those two hours so much easier.

But...it's hard to invite someone into my dubious parenting.   She  may see that the only thing The Boy eats for dinner is crackers and apple sauce* or that his splashing in the bath nearly floods the bathroom every night or that sometimes the only way I can calm The Girl is to park her on the boob for hours at a time.  It's not all bad, I guess, but it doesn't feel that it's the way it's supposed to be. 

What parenting tasks do YOU feel you need help with?  And do you ask for it?

*Obviously, this is not the meal I lead with.

Comments

[midlife mommy]

If she's also a mommy, she won't find any of those things to be weird. Sounds like the status quo at our house.

I need help with the park. I effing hate going to the park. So, my husband does park-type things. Does that count?

Otherwise, I would just like help with the overall childcare thing, so that my husband and I can have a night out once in awhile.

[Dee]

Amen, midlife mommy, amen.

I too would like some backup come bedtime when hubby is out of town. Managing two little people for dinner, bathtime, and bedtime just wears me out, especially when one of those littles is deep in the throes of the terrible twos and also just graduated to a big girl bed (currently, the bane of my nighttime existence). So actually, I'd like someone to help with the nightly routine and also with the nightly waking up routine on the part of the biggest little.

And midlife mommy's right--if your friend has kids, none of what you mentioned as part of your nightly routine will be in the least bit weird to her.

It's wonderful that she offered--I'm not telling you what to do but maybe it'd be a good thing to have her help?

[Carla Hinkle]

Really, none of that sounds at all unusual. I think anyone with a passing familiarity with kids wouldn't be fazed.

I love bedtime help. I looooooove naptime help with my 3 year old. She used to nap for me but now totally refuses, but is more than happy to nap for the sitter. So we do that and I try not to feel too inadeqaute as a mother.

[AmyinMotown]

Oh Lord, what do I feel I need help with? How about all of it! Luckily, my husband rarely travels, rarely enough that I enjoy time with my daughter when he's gone. I dread it, but I also enjoy it. I do have family nearby, which helps a lot.

I am not great at asking for help, but I am realizing I need to do it when Baby #2 arrives.

And nothing about your parenting sounds dubious. I think, especially with little kids, you do what works. It's all about survival, baby!
If that means applesauce for dinner and nursing for hours, fine. People who are too rigidly structured irritate me. I think if this person is cool enough to be friends with you, and nice enough to offer help, she'll be utterly unfazed by anything that goes on.

(and midlife mommy? I HATE the park too. Bores me to tears. I've never admitted that to anyone I am not married to!)

[Leigha]

I can't ask for help when the baby is cranking. It's almost like admitting that I need a break when she's been crying for a solid stretch is a failure on my part as a mom; in reality, it's probably just normal, but letting someone else know that I need help is beyond my capability.

I also can't manage to leave my husband alone with the kids, although he's left me with them both multiple times. I feel guilty for not being there, and for leaving him to handle them both on his own. But I see nothing wrong with him leaving me with them; matter of fact, I encourage him to do it.

I think we all need to get better at asking for help. It might make us less stressed.

[Tertia]

I also never ask for help. I don't why I am like this, I wish I wasn't. I go one step worse. I refuse help when offered because I don't like to 'inconvenience people'. My mother keeps telling me "I wouldn't offer if I didn't WANT to do it". I am an idiot.

Re things I need help with....

- eating
- sleeping
- discipline
- fetching
- carrying
- etc

I mainly need someone to watch them while I have a work function on, or when I need to go to the shop. Shopping with 2x almost 3 year olds = disaster.

For what its worth, if we stayed closer, I would love to have the boy over to play while you did your thing. In fact, you can leave the girl here too. I promise not to bathe them.

;-)

[Krista]

Sniffles and coughs and other "symptoms"- whenever my little girl is sick i wish, wish, wish my Mom lived closer so I could call in Nana-help.....I am not a natural nurse.....I just worry too much

[Andrea]

If your friend doesn't have kids, she won't know anything you're doing isn't Best Practices. If she does, she understands, believe me.

I am humbled by clipping little fingernails (husband's job) and getting my youngest to nap (ditto). I also have a lot of trouble shopping with children in tow, and I also have trouble with getting my kids to pick up after themselves at all, and assorted other disciplinary issues. On the other hand, if you need someone to read stories, make macaroni and cheese from a box, or throw a birthday party, I'm your woman.

[Suz]

I'm terrible about asking for help from anyone other than my husband. Whenever the nanny calls in sick or has an emergency, I feel like screaming "heeelp" and taking assistance from whomever responds. But I don't.

[Homestead Mom]

I write this at 6:46 pm - I hope you are happily (or even uneasily) hosting your acquaintance and getting some help. I need help with bedtime also. I pile everything on myself and then feel guilty for less than generous feelings towards the kids.

May the acquaintance become a friendly resource who doesn't judge your perfectly normal workarounds (like nursing for comfort/quiet/sanity time with the Girl.)

[Chickenpig]

Ummm I feel like I could use help with everything, but I ask for no help at all. Twin toddlers are hard, they're just hard. Thankfully, my husband is right there every night for dinner, and bath-bedtime routine. If not, I would just melt into a sad, weepy, jello mess. Lately he's been mentioning that work wants him to start going on travel again, and it just about makes my heart stop. I find it hard to have anyone in here to help, because our house is a *beeping* disaster. What I need is a maid :(

[JK]

Why is it so hard to be a Mom? Why does it make confident women crumple? Is it the hormones?

I ask these questions because I know so many women who feel as you feel... I include myself in the group. Motherhood is tough. The kids keep changing and so do the problems/challenges.

[Summer]

If feeding your son applesauce and crackers tops your list of Bad Mommy Moves, then you are doing a stellar job. And as far as I'm concerned, letting the baby nurse for hours IS the way it's supposed to be... it was my one and only trick for dealing with my son when he was an infant, which now means I'm pretty hopeless when friends hand me their babies. If the baby starts to cry, my hand wants to creep over to my bra strap... which no longer has a clasp on it. I am so useless with babies.

What I am good at, though, is asking for help. I got my mom to sell her house and buy one three blocks from mine, so she's always around to do Nana Duty. I have a strong network of friends in the neighborhood, on whom I rely for everything from school carpooling to babysitting ("playdates," we call it "playdates") to "if you're going to the consignment store, could you look for boy jeans in size 4?" Some of those friends are good about asking me for the same kind of help in return, but some NEVER ask for help, which leaves me feeling like a Taker.

What I haven't been able to ask for help with is getting pregnant. 2+ years of secondary infertility, and I still can't deal with the thought of medical assistance. I'll ask everyone in the neighborhood to help me raise the kid I have, but when it comes to trying to make another, my husband and I insist on doing it all ourselves.

[Linda]

Ummm conflict resolution. I have no patience when I'm nursing the two month old and my 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 year old boy start fighting over toys. I start by being all nice saying "please use your words, tell him its busy and he can have it in two minutes" Screaming continues, then someone hits, then the baby pinches my nipple and then I yell "okay, enough- give me the toy and stop screaming"
sigh, I wish I had more time/patience to teach them how to work things out...

[Wabi]

Maybe this isn't parenting per se, but it's definitely something that makes me a crankier parent: I need help with the housework. I am a neat person and things get picked up 112 times a day and we are pretty organized. But at the end of the day I am too exhausted to actually CLEAN. With a preschooler and a crawling infant, that equals wall-to-wall stickiness. It's gross, it gets me on edge with my husband and the kids, and yet somehow I cannot ask for help with it.

[Catharina]

I don't have kids, but I wanted to state my point of view from the other side. My cousin has a 5 and a 2 year old and ever since her firstborn was a baby, I've come over every couple of weeks to stay for a few days. By now it has become completely normal that she sleeps in when I am there, that I take her daughter to kindergarten and dress her son in the morning or take a nice long walk with the kids so she can get some housework done. I don't question her parenting because I look at her kids and see that they are great kids and that she is doing a great job with them. Plus, most people who don't have kids and offer to help just enjoy spending time with their friend/relatives kids and not to inspect their capabilities as a parent. I hope you said yes to the help.

[Sandy]

Hey there! Just came across your blog. I am a Park Slope mom too with a 5 week old. Have no mom friends yet. Do you want to get together?

[laura]

My house. I need help with stuff inside my house. It's too easy to get a babysitter to come to my home so I can get out of the house into the real world. It's too hard (for me, for the kids) to have a babysitter/friend come to hang with the kids while I get stuff done *inside* the house. If the babies know I'm here, they won't relax. Which means I won't relax. Which means the laundry still sits in a huge, wrinkled pile and the dining room table is still covered with the crap I dumped out of my purse two weeks ago.

[jenny]

you know what i need help with? not feeling like a failure as a mother when i can't stand my child, even for a fleeting second. not feeling like a failure when i don't make every portion of her dinner from scratch, when i don't have a perfectly clean house, when i simply cannot face going to the playground again. i don't want to feel like a failure merely by looking at other mothers and deciding that they are thinner than i am, better dressed than i am, better groomed than i am, and thus better mothers than i am. i echo the earlier poster who asked why is motherhood so hard? why do we freakin' make it so hard for ourselves? that's what i'd like to know and that's what i want help with. that and maybe someone to make the time from 5-7 pass a little more quickly and smoothly.

[Bea]

Wow! I was just nosing around to see if I could read some blogs and learn what they are all about and I found yours. What you've written and what all these other truly great mommies such as yourself have made me feel SANE!!! I too have trouble asking for help. It's the guilt thing. It's feeling like you should be able to do it all because you see all those other "put together" moms when out at the store. But now that makes me think that maybe they are not as "put together" as I think I see. I have a 10, 6 and almost 15 month old and I can relate to every previous poster before me. If you are comfortable ask for the help. If you are not don't beat yourself up because it sounds as though you are an Excellent mom. Crackers and applesauce try granola bars and then some more granola bars for my six year old. But just wait because there are always those occaisions where she will eat all of her taco salad lettuce included and then she will ask for more. Those are the times that make everything a little better that and sites like these. Thanks!!!