Is Self-Care a Human Right?

What do you do when you can't take of your own needs and your children's needs at the same time

Do what you love. Follow your highest bliss. Leave situations and people that no longer serve you. Respect your needs and boundaries. The Universe wants you thriving, and you shouldn’t accept anything less than that. Only if you take good care of yourself first you’ll be able to take good care of everything else. Listen to your feelings, if it doesn’t feels right it’s probably not right for you.

Well, unless it’s taking care of a sick child when your whole family is down with the flu, you’re very pregnant and in so much pain that you pretty much haven’t slept in two weeks.

In that case, uhm, it sucks to be you I suppose?

There are moments when parenting feels like a zero-sum game

I probably have less moments like this than most other moms, with all the conveniences our family can afford. Still, every now and then it feels like my daughter’s needs and my own are directly at odds, in a fierce competition where nobody wins. I have reached my limits and gone far beyond, with my whole body screaming how much it needs to rest, and still there is a whole another person to take care of. A broken leg, a nasty stomach bug, early pregnancy sickness, or a flu, all of these things are difficult enough when you’re on your own, and outright impossible when you’re also supposed to feed, soothe, and entertain a tiny child or a few.

And yet, millions of parents all around the world are somehow doing it every day. Their sanity or long-term health might occasionally take a hit, but what other options do they have?

Sometimes I wonder if this is why so many people are reluctant to have kids

It’s the most demanding thing most of us will ever do. A hundred years ago the lives of parents and childless people weren’t that much different, they both had to labor in the fields, milk the cows, hand wash the laundry, and haul the water whether they felt like it or not, whether they were sick or had the resources to do it or not. Now we’ve smoothed out the edges of basic life maintenance and middle class work to such a degree that the usual bumps of raising a child feel almost unfair in comparison. We are creatures of comfort, and a certain level of comfort is what we expect.

I’m quite embarrassed to admit this, but when it’s particularly bad for days on end I sometimes catch myself thinking that my family should immediately drop everything and get me out of this situation. At one point I fantasized about being taken to the hospital so that I can finally focus on just being sick. Having my basic needs met feels almost like my birthright, and deprived of it I don’t feel like I should be held accountable for anything else, even when I know all the other people in my life have a lot on their plates as well.

Why should I? So many workplaces now recognize how important it is to rest and recover, and directly encourage employees to take it easy on challenging days. Why shouldn’t a mom get a sick day or a mental health day too? They’re on the job 24/7, and their kids would be so much better off if they were attended to by someone who isn’t so sick and exhausted. Surely it’s in everyone’s best interest to make it possible somehow.

A very tired mom cooking dinner while her children are impatiently waiting

I suppose this is where idyllic visions of the past come from

We believe that taking good care of yourself is a basic human right, and we rightly recognize it’s often impossible when raising kids in a nuclear family. Of course it is, everyone knows it takes a whole village to raise a child!

I never had a chance to hear my grandparents talk much about their childhoods, but as far as I’ve read about village life back in the day, it was less about the neighbors and extended family all taking turns to look after babies, and more about everyone having lower expectations of how comfortable both parents and their children should be.

I’ve recently read an excellent book about women’s life in the Polish countryside about a century ago. It describes how without modern conveniences everyone worked an equivalent of several physically intense full-time jobs. All the adults were so busy taking care of survival that the only people who paid attention to kids were other, just slightly older kids. Infants were left in improvised hammocks on the side of the field when their mothers harvested the crops. The author mentions how her own mom was in charge of taking care of her toddler sister at just 7 years old, and how devastated she was when the baby girl tragically drowned in a river on her watch.

Yes it did take a village, but the village was all very busy and exhausted people, much more exhausted and uncomfortable than most of us can imagine. If they did pay attention to other people’s children at all, it was mostly scolding them for putting themselves in too much danger and then letting them go their way.

Surviving in a world like this required endless self-sacrifice

Perhaps this is why we care so much about self-care these days? In my childhood church I always heard how important it is to lessen yourself, to forget yourself, to put your virtues and duties above anything you might want. “Self-mortification” was a word I kept hearing a lot, and the older I got the less I wanted anything to do with it. Why would anyone worship a God who wants you crushed down and neglecting yourself? In what Universe could this possibly be a good thing?

It feels unacceptable now, because the world our ancestors lived in feels unacceptable too. Their religion is as cruel and alien to us as their everyday life was. And so we’ve put together our own, one where self-care is both everyone’s birthright and their most sacred calling, where people are both encouraged and obliged to do what feels good, seek out good vibes only, and abandon any job, person, or project that makes them feel like they’re neglecting themselves.

Well, that’s at least until they have a kid.

I did in fact end up in a hospital recently

It was just a random pregnancy health scare, but I had no idea what was happening and how long it would take. Eventually they told me everything was fine and sent me home on the same day, but I spent the whole time there thinking how much I wanted to be back home with my baby girl, and hug her, and be able to tell her everything was going to be all right. I cried while getting the vital tests done, praying that the tiny person growing inside me is all healthy and well. I remembered how I’d fantasized about being taken to hospital just a few weeks earlier, and couldn’t believe how idiotic it was.

Listening to my baby’s heartbeat on the CTG machine, I think that for a short moment I finally understood what the guys in my childhood church might have been clumsily pointing at with all this weird self-sacrifice talk. I wish I could remember it still, but all I know for sure is that at that time I could see very clearly that even if I was in intense pain or discomfort, nothing about this whole situation was really about me.

Raising kids is already much more comfortable than it was

Maybe with new technological advances we’ll make it even more convenient still. I do hope that my daughter will always be able to take good care of both herself and her children, without ever having to compromise or neglect her own sleep, recovery, or long-term fitness and health.

Until this happens, I’d better appreciate how much easier I already have it than all the women in my family who came before me, and how much they had to sacrifice so that I can be here. Comfort is a modern luxury, one that’s nice and pretty helpful to have, but ultimately not the most important thing in life. I know it’s easier to remember this now when I'm feeling quite well than in the middle of yet another wave of flu or stomach bugs in my family, but I will do my best to keep it in mind whenever the next one arrives. It won’t take the pain or exhaustion away, or make them any less real and intense, but knowing most parents have survived this and much worse might make it a little bit easier to ride it.

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Hey everyone, it’s been a while since I last posted here. I never planned to take a break this long, but since getting pregnant I’ve been hardly keeping up pace with my wonderful 3yo daughter and all the viruses and bacteria making rounds in her daycare.

I’m delighted to let you know we’re all doing well now, and her baby brother is due to arrive in less than two months. As you may guess, with a fresh addition to our little family it might take us a while before we figure out a new newsletter schedule that works for everyone.

In the meantime, you might want to check out my husband’s newsletter. The topics he covers are a bit different than what I write about, but he’s much better at writing something interesting consistently than I am.

Until next time!
Maria Made in Cosmos