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Dear auntie.com,

I am a young woman with a two-year-old child. I have been married for six years. My husband recently had some problems that caused our marriage to come to an end. He is long gone.
I am here in this house that I desperately need to sell and move on, alone with a two-year-old. I do not have a job nor a car yet. I feel as if I am stranded. I need to pack up and sort out all my things, paint and repair the house, sell the house, buy a car, find a job and a place to live, care for my son and assure he has a happy life.

Right now I need to depend on the help of others because of the very sticky situation I am in. I have simply asked my friends and family for help with everything, but no one has responded. How do you ask for help (in the right words) and try to get any helpful hand that I can?

It could be taking my son for just an hour, or painting a few rooms, or giving me a simple ride to the store. No one is responding and I am completely confused. Have I phrased it wrong? What could I be doing wrong that no one wants to volunteer any help whatsoever?

Can you help?
Stunned and confused by family

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auntie's answer

[ 26 May 2006: Message edited by: Michelle ]

And teens, while they don't have the same second to second demands as a toddler, they do have demands.

Oy.

Family stands away in the early going because of many factors. Mostly they just don't know how to react. They are afraid of looking too partizan in case of reconciliation-- which happens often. They may want to help by doing inappropriate things like being nasty to the ex.

What I learned is you can't let family sit there and guess. You don't have to give them a blow by blow description of the break up, but you need to tell them how things are unfolding.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Family stands away in the early going because of many factors. . They are afraid of looking too partizan in case of reconciliation.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
sometimes people back off if they feel like someone is really overly needy.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I didn't get any hint from her letter that she's badmouthing her ex, and that the grandparents are standing back because of that.

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[ 27 May 2006: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

As far as those around who sense neediness and run in the other direction, frankly I think that's true but it's crap. While I won't pose the question of who could be more needy than a single parent, trying to put food on the table, a roof over everyone's heads, get kids to the various places they might need to go (and believe me, my kids didn't have much in the way of commitments for other reasons), deal with demands of work, interaction with schools, children who are sick and/or reacting to the loss of a parent, household tasks and maintenance (it once took me three months to get a toilet unplugged because I couldn't afford a plumber and didn't have the time and attention to deal with it), engage in the legal or mediation process and whatever else comes one's way, well, that's a lot to expect one person to take on single-handedly.

Yes, people in this position need help so that makes them needy, and it's bloody awful that while we (especially those on the left) spout the mantra of "it takes a village to raise a child", that village often seems to be hiding in their huts when a single parent needs some help (at least in my experience).

I remember hearing about the cuts to housekeeping that seniors were having imposed about them during the time I was single parenting. At the time, I thought it was horrible that the government was cutting a program that might be so important to helping seniors stay in their homes rather than go into seniors residences. Yet, at the same time I remember wondering "where is the help for those of us who are caring for children, on our own, with all that it entails?"

I know this a long tirade but I think that if we genuinely believe that "it takes a village..." the village, in the form of community and families have to assist. While some of us go through it and live to tell the tale, I will not believe that it was a good time for my children. My family let me down. My current partner's family, by contrast, plays a major role in the lives of his sister and her two kids -- not in a co-dependent way but in a mutually contributory way.

The pain I went through was unreal; the rage I felt was beyond words. Now, 10 years later, I still harbour the resentment and although I have forgiven, to a point and only because I need to carry on with my life, I will never, ever forget: the exhaustion, the struggles, the poverty, etc., while the rest of them lived in luxury. The "family" gatherings we were excluded from, the Christmases spent alone, the birthdays never celebrated, the help that never came. The years and years of never having a break, not even an afternoon while they were all running around helping each other and their friends. In my mind I picture them with a stick driving us away.

Now, that things are better because I alone made them better, they talk to us and invite us and I go but I will never trust again.

My core values were shattered to dust at the time. Fair weather family is what I have. Okay, maybe I haven't forgiven yet but it doesn't matter because I'm leaving this city forever. My daughter graduated from university last year and is on her own. I'm taking my two teenage sons and moving to BC next month. Maybe I'll find better friends than the family I have.

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My core values were shattered to dust at the time.

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This resonsates strongly with me. I don't trust my family members at all anymore, especially those who are big on spouting the "family values" line. They're all words and no action.

To get back to the question about asking with the wrong words, some folks have suggested asking in specific ways, including auntie, I believe. While putting things in more specific ways might help in some cases, I don't think these situations are about finding the right words.

How can one be more specific than asking the kids' dad if he could have the kids overnight because I had to go out of town to work? (He said "no" on every occassion that I asked, including recently.) How can one be more specific than asking if someone could take my daughter to the orthodontist during my work hours and being told "gee, hon, I think that's my afternoon that I'm planning to go look for a pair of shoes"? How can one be more specific than bawling my eyes out to my mother because I just couldn't take it anymore and have my mother say "gee, hon, I'm sorry things are so hard but your dad and I feel that [my ex] should be doing more. If we do things that he should be doing, he gets off scott-free."

So, my parents helped grudgingly on very few occassions, on a very limited basis and, on their terms (such as watching TV the whole time they were helping with "childcare"). My ex, while he lived in the same town, got hooked up with someone who doesn't like kids and refuses to this day to have his children in their house. (They are now 16, 19 & 22 so I don't think behaviour's an issue.)

Those of you who haven't gone through this, I challenge you to, the next time you see that single parent at church, at a union meeting, at work, genuinely ask how things are for them. I think that you'll find that many are going through the kind of hell that nuclearfreezone and I have described and what sounds like the writer of the question is experiencing. Why can't some of these organizations do what they do for seniors, etc, and get some folks together to help the single parents in their community, even if it's only something small like picking up the groceries?

[ 27 May 2006: Message edited by: Loretta ]

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
It's strange, the more dysfunctional families often are the ones who will be there no matter what.

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Perhaps families who have been through hardship are more empathetic?

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I agree, though, that if you ask for help in an open-ended way instead of asking for specific, small favours, people can be overwhelmed.

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One friend was abandonned by her husband, leaving her with 3 young children. I didn't know what to do for her. My husband and I offered to help but she never asked for anything specific, and I was too busy and tired from my own kids and jobs to get creative about helping her.

[ 29 June 2006: Message edited by: Farces ]

[ 30 June 2006: Message edited by: Farces ]

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Originally posted by Merryblue:
find some decent friends with kids, especially some with girls a couple of years older than your child. Do things together. Take their kids for awhile, and vice versa. Go picnicking together. A pile of kids and two moms is much more fun.

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Originally posted by Merryblue:
How dare you presuppose she's whining or asking for too much help? As a couple of women who have been there said, "a single mom IS needy"! She actually needs help. Giving help to her is warranted and it is expected. There should be lots of it, and it should happen daily.

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When my wife ran off leaving me with two babies ... I was a basket case. I couldn't think of welfare or any of the other helps, they were all female only until the mid 1980's. My family were horrified and never did forgive me --a mere male-- for being a single parent.

I took a job as the resident caretaker at a hunting and fishing lodge. That allowed me to single-parent and work. The year and a bit I spent hundreds of miles in the bush gave me the foundation to come back into the world.

I must admit, the violent contempt we faced as we lone fathers fought for the right to basic "helps" damaged me. Yet, I deeply believe that that year in the bush --being the absolute responsible-- helped me in learning to face the violence we went through in the fight to get lone fathers some rights. That year of coping alone, even now thirty years later, helps me in my day to day battle as a disabled man.

Thus my original point: Somewhere, there is a balance between help-needed and learning to stand on one's own feet.

I re-read her post and never saw any signs of "learned helplessness" there. How I wish men could be single moms for even a month! I think the whole planet would change.

As for the other assumption--that she didn't ask for specific help. How do you know she didn't ask for "specific" help? Her post would likely have been longer had she documented everything, I'm sure! In any case, what is wrong with her family asking, "What would you like me to do for you?"

Then, if she hadn't been specific before, she would certainly be specific then.

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I have simply asked my friends and family for help with everything, but no one has responded. How do you ask for help (in the right words) and try to get any helpful hand that I can?

It could be taking my son for just an hour, or painting a few rooms, or giving me a simple ride to the store. No one is responding and I am completely confused. Have I phrased it wrong? What could I be doing wrong that no one wants to volunteer any help whatsoever?

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She has "simply asked for help with everything"? What does that mean? That she asks for help with specific tasks whenever they need doing, or she says to her friends and family, "I need help, I'm overwhelmed!" without being specific about what she needs?

I don't think anyone's trying to blame her. But she's asking, what could she be doing wrong? Well, given the small amount of information in the letter, no one can know exactly how she is approaching people, so they're giving some ideas about what COULD be wrong based on what she MIGHT possibly be doing.

That said, I also wouldn't just assume she is suffering from "learned helplessness". Often when women are fresh out of a relationship, especially with kids, it's pretty overwhelming and it's hard to know what to do first or how to cope. That's why I was thinking it might be a good idea for her to see a counsellor of some kind - no, not for medication, but for coping and communication skills if she's finding that people aren't responding the way she wishes to what she is telling them, and she's (understandably) having a hard time coping with everything life is throwing at her.

I re-read her post and never saw any signs of "learned helplessness" there. How I wish men could be single moms for even a month! I think the whole planet would change."

As I said, I raised my kids alone. No welfare, no child support, no tax deductions for child care, no, no, no ad bigotry: All those things and many more were female only; lone fathers and our kids were not considered human enough to be worth helping. That is still the case in a good many "first world" countries.

I will not return your insults. I will state, clearly, people who do not know how to ask for help, in the simplest possible way, tend to have learned helplessness. That is not always the case, true; yet it is so often enough to make the comment.

To get help, one must ask for exactly what one wants. Asking for "help" doesn't usually cut it as people do not know what you mean. People are not mind readers.

Furthermore, as I said in my first post there is immense mental/social benefit in standing on one's own two feet. I gained something from that year and a bit when I was the only parent, with no one to babysit, no one to help and no advice from anyone.

When I needed to do laundry, I hauled the washer outside, filled it by bucket and started the engine (gasoline). When the kids needed a bath, I put the laundry tub on the cool end of the woodstove and bathed the kids. etc. etc. etc. There was no help and no possibility of help. That period of standing on my own two feet gave me the confidence and security I badly needed.

This is an important concept and one too few seem to grasp. There is immense benefit from BOTH:

- standing completely alone and doing for one's self
- standing with family help in a caring core group

[ 25 July 2006: Message edited by: Farces ]

[ 25 July 2006: Message edited by: Farces ]