You Don't Have To Do It All
My husband took a day off of work this week. The morning began as normal, but by 8 a.m. it spiraled into kids crying and me taking a timeout behind my locked door. I needed help, space, an extra set of hands, and someone with the dose of patience I lacked.
As I watched him take the kids to the park, make their lunch, and put our two-year-old down for a nap, I felt guilty that I didn’t contribute and guilty that he carried the load of two parents. Rather than being grateful for my husband and his flexible job, I resented needing the help.
I’d tell anyone else it’s good to ask for help. For me, it’s even okay if I ask for help in the obvious “all hands on deck” situations—like having twins, a rough bout of the flu, or the death of a loved one. I’ll happily meet you at the door to take a casserole off your hands or let you play with toddlers while I recover from a C-section. But on an average Tuesday when I just can’t pull it together? That doesn’t reach the standard of a “good reason” to call in reinforcements.
It felt like an internal wrestling match between what I knew in my head to be true and the lies hounding me every moment. You’re not a good mother. You’re weak. Everyone else seems to be able to handle this—and more—just fine. What’s wrong with you?
Motherhood for me has been one big battle against an obsessive desire for competence. I expect myself to be invincible, a real life Wonder Woman who can handle it all. Only I can’t. I feel incapable and weak, and I fail to live up to my own superwoman expectations.
My counselor once told me, “Every day you wish you were different. And then when you wake up and that hasn’t happened, you’re already disappointed in yourself.”
She wasn’t talking about good, positive change. In that sense, every day we can be a little different as we learn and grow. I want to be different by loving toddler crafts and preschool games instead of finding them completely mind-numbing. I want to be an extrovert instead of an introvert and thrive on six hours of sleep instead of craving eight. I want to be one of those moms who makes pancakes every Saturday morning wearing an apron and a smile. I want to meet my kids’ needs without ever having my own needs and help others instead of being the one asking for it. I want to be competent in every task required in motherhood and life.
And then when I go through the day having not made pancakes and needing help, I’m already disappointed in myself.
I’ve resisted the lesson for my four years as a mother, but I’m slowly starting to grasp that needing help isn’t a vice. Taking a break or admitting weakness don’t have to be seen as failures or reasons for shame. What if they were seen as traits that cause us to lean on each other and learn to trust the One who never grows tired or weary?
My need can be a gift. Our limitedness means not just that we can’t do it all. It also means we don’t have to. We get to ask for help. We get to pray. We get to go to bed with tasks undone. Despite cultural, family, or self-imposed expectations screaming at us to endlessly hustle, the truth is there’s freedom in being finite.
Practicing this is easier said than done, of course. Life comes at us like a hurricane at times, and some seasons require us to dig deep and maybe even hustle. But at some point, we’ll hit a wall we can’t break through. We can keep hammering away by ourselves, growing more weary with every swing. Or, we can look around at the people and resources in our lives, ask for what we need, and choose to be grateful when someone answers.
Asking for help to get through the day doesn’t mean we’re subpar parents. It means we’re human. We can receive a meal without calculating how we’ll return the favor. We can look at our to-do lists at the end of the night and give thanks for the checked boxes without beating ourselves up for the unchecked ones. We can say no to extra “opportunities” that may push us over the edge and yes to the hands that hold us back from falling off it.
I’m learning to embrace my limits and accept the help I need. And I’m learning to do that with gratitude instead of guilt, a sense of freedom instead of failure. I don’t have to start the day tallying the cracks that show in my facade of competence. And I don’t have to carry guilt for not doing it all.
I don’t think we were ever meant to in the first place.
Photo by Lottie Caiella