To accept help is to make oneself vulnerable, IMO... being less than fully-functional and self-reliant. Less than fully adult, somehow...
I'd disagree. I had 20 people come and help me with my move the other week, and it didn't mean that I was less than adult.
The wider society tends to draw poles of "dependent" vs "independent," but there's also interdependence, which means relying on each other at different times, and letting that be a happy process of community building instead of a calculated balance-sheet type of thing. Which leads to your point of:
Not to mention incurring an ongoing debt to those providing help, unless one has first done enough for them to maintain a rough balance.
I surely will try to be there in kind next time any of the folks who helped me need a hand... but it's not a weighty pressured thing. I know that they're not looking at me to see, "When will Geri pay us back for our hard work on her behalf?" They did it out of kindness.
When I most needed help was in the first few days after Pat's accident, when she was incapacitated and had to remain in bed or otherwise reclined with her leg up, while the kids were running around yelling and trash and dishes and laundry were piling up.
I think that might not have been clear in your original posts. You said that Pat would have 2 weeks of acute pain, 6 weeks of recovery time. So I - and perhaps others - got the impression that help would be needed over that longer 2-6 week duration, and we didn't rush. Had you said something like "I need someone to cook breakfast on Thursday and dinner on Friday," that might have given us the heads-up that more immediate help was what was needed.
Now that it is the weekend, I'm home and can cover those things.
Ok, so you have the weekend covered. Monday comes soon - what does your family need then?
Make an LJ post with a concrete list, with things such as "Pat will be home Monday from 1-4. In that time, she'd love help with taking out the trash and doing the dishes. On Tuesday evening, she could use a ride to the clinic and help making dinner." And so forth. That will allow people to look at what they are doing in those specific time slots.
There will likely be some time slots that get covered, and some that don't. For the ones that don't - it doesn't mean that people don't care - it just means that they were busy then.
And I can hardly expect friends to help with these things... my local sweeties didn't volunteer, even the one who *likes* dishwashing.
Just because your sweeties are busy this week doesn't mean that others wouldn't be happy to step in. The one has nothing to do with the other.
It can be scary to ask for help, and to wonder if it will come, and to try to guess what it means if it doesn't come. But by not asking, you shut out the possibility of ever learning how much people care. I was awed that 20 people wanted to come help me move... but I'd never have learned just how ready people were to be there for me if I hadn't first put out that call for help.
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Date: 2005-08-07 06:06 am (UTC)I'd disagree. I had 20 people come and help me with my move the other week, and it didn't mean that I was less than adult.
The wider society tends to draw poles of "dependent" vs "independent," but there's also interdependence, which means relying on each other at different times, and letting that be a happy process of community building instead of a calculated balance-sheet type of thing. Which leads to your point of:
Not to mention incurring an ongoing debt to those providing help, unless one has first done enough for them to maintain a rough balance.
I surely will try to be there in kind next time any of the folks who helped me need a hand... but it's not a weighty pressured thing. I know that they're not looking at me to see, "When will Geri pay us back for our hard work on her behalf?" They did it out of kindness.
When I most needed help was in the first few days after Pat's accident, when she was incapacitated and had to remain in bed or otherwise reclined with her leg up, while the kids were running around yelling and trash and dishes and laundry were piling up.
I think that might not have been clear in your original posts. You said that Pat would have 2 weeks of acute pain, 6 weeks of recovery time. So I - and perhaps others - got the impression that help would be needed over that longer 2-6 week duration, and we didn't rush. Had you said something like "I need someone to cook breakfast on Thursday and dinner on Friday," that might have given us the heads-up that more immediate help was what was needed.
Now that it is the weekend, I'm home and can cover those things.
Ok, so you have the weekend covered. Monday comes soon - what does your family need then?
Make an LJ post with a concrete list, with things such as "Pat will be home Monday from 1-4. In that time, she'd love help with taking out the trash and doing the dishes. On Tuesday evening, she could use a ride to the clinic and help making dinner." And so forth. That will allow people to look at what they are doing in those specific time slots.
There will likely be some time slots that get covered, and some that don't. For the ones that don't - it doesn't mean that people don't care - it just means that they were busy then.
And I can hardly expect friends to help with these things... my local sweeties didn't volunteer, even the one who *likes* dishwashing.
Just because your sweeties are busy this week doesn't mean that others wouldn't be happy to step in. The one has nothing to do with the other.
It can be scary to ask for help, and to wonder if it will come, and to try to guess what it means if it doesn't come. But by not asking, you shut out the possibility of ever learning how much people care. I was awed that 20 people wanted to come help me move... but I'd never have learned just how ready people were to be there for me if I hadn't first put out that call for help.