Help That Is Not Mine to Give Them
I am one piece of my children's care. There are other helpers, and I let those helpers help. I do not have to be the only resource they have.
You have been carrying the weight that comes from believing you must be everything to your child. The whole comfort. The whole guidance. The whole healing. The whole orientation. That weight is unsustainable. No parent is meant to be everything. A child who has only one adult to lean on is a child whose adult is being asked too much.
You can let other helpers help. The kind teacher. The thoughtful coach. The wise aunt or uncle. The neighbor who notices. The trained helper who can offer the kind of support you cannot provide. Each of these people is a piece of your child's larger circle of care — you are not in competition with them. You are in cooperation.
There may be a particular kind of helper your child needs right now whose work is the work of the deeper feelings. A person whose room is set up for children to bring the hard things and set them down. A person whose voice is patient and slow. A person who is paid, gently, to do nothing other than be useful to your child for the hour you sit in the waiting room. That kind of help is a gift you give your child by saying yes to it. It is not a sign that you are failing — it is a sign that you are wise enough to know what one parent can and cannot offer.
For some of you, the harder version of this is that the help you know your child needs is being blocked from the other side — the appointment that gets canceled, the care that is refused, the visit that the person whose agreement is also required will not provide. That blocking is not a small thing. It is the slow obstruction of care your child has a right to receive. You do not have to fix it today. You can keep the appointments you can keep, advocate where you can advocate, and trust that the years will quietly reveal who tended the child and who did not.
Your child also has the help of their own resilience, which is more substantial than children get credit for. They have the help of friends their own age. They have the help of music, of stories, of the small private world of their own imagination. All of these are real helpers.
Today, name three helpers your child has in their life that are not you. Notice how the circle is wider than the one parent inside it. The wider circle is good news. It means your child is held by more than you alone can hold.