Eliza, my youngest, was super into Cinderella when she was 3. We went through a time where we read at least two versions of the story a day (How, and why, exactly, did we have 5 slightly different versions of the story in book form??) She watched her favorite parts on the kindle when I took her with me to the workout room at the clubhouse.
One of her favorite scenes was when the mice are lamenting about how much cinderella had to do, and she won’t be able to go to the ball. Then, they come up with the idea to finish the dress themselves. They come together, work hard, and make this beautiful, amazing dress to gift Cinderella.
Cinderella is worn down, beaten, and downhearted, she comes into her room to find this amazing gift. What does she do? She thanks them.
Imagine if instead of Cinderella accepting a dress, it was a new mother and her friends all came together and offered to help her with meals, or even watch an older sibling. What would her response be? Would she even accept it? Would she pretend to have her act together and assume she needs to be self-sufficient?
I was a new mother once. (albeit, a while ago, it seems now) I remember the ridiculous amount of guilt I had in accepting meals from our Sunday School group. Feeling inadequate as a mother because I was too sore and tired from recovering from a cesarean birth and breastfeeding difficulties to cook meals for my husband. I felt overwhelmed with motherhood in general, and the inadequacies of not being able to have a vaginal birth or having breastfeeding come naturally just pushed me over the edge. It didn’t take much for the insecurities to take root and for me to refuse offers of help for much longer past two weeks postpartum.
Here’s the thing though, (or one of the things) I needed help past those first two weeks. I was just too proud, too insecure, too polite, and too immature to accept the gifts of help graciously. I secretly felt that the people who were bringing me meals were doing it out of a sense of obligation, and I was supposed to “politely” put up a fuss about their offers to help. I was “supposed” to be able to do it on my own.
On the other side of my journey to motherhood, I now realize what those people were really offering. It wasn’t to make me feel more inadequate. It wasn’t to “judge” me or my inability to feed anyone. It was to help lighten the load. Most of those women had given birth before, and many of them were multiple-time moms. They knew because they had been there.
So my advice from my experience is to suck up your pride and accept help. Welcome the people who are trying to lighten the load. Don’t wave them away, say “we’ve got this” even if you do. Just take a cue from Cinderella. Twirl around with that dress and say “oh, thank you so much.
