The support network that supports you – 05/07/2023 – Equilíbrio

For a while my children took circus lessons. With every inch the trapeze rose, my heart raced. Seeing them risking something I knew they didn’t have any training to successfully pull off distressed me. I wavered between pride through courage and despair through fear. What calmed me down, to some degree, was the safety net. Beneath the rising feet was safety equipment that told me the risk was high and so was the caution.

Taking care of a child is, without a doubt, the most intense, dangerous, risky and incredible activity that I have ever undertaken. I raise two children without having had any training that really made me skilled in this: I learn while I practice, with the full awareness that the rules of the game change all the time and that I will never be the hyper-qualified world champion. When I think I understand children, they change age, size, crises, perception of the world, challenges. I have to resign myself and learn. The trapeze goes up a few inches and I feel butterflies in my stomach again.

If we paid attention to the complexity, risk and demands of the activity, we would place the support network as a priority in child care, a social and collective obligation. We would think about swaddling, diapers, bodysuits and arms and supports and wires and “do you want to leave the kids with me today?”.

Unfortunately, we learned that each child is the sole responsibility of their caregivers, who are divided into several to handle – or nearly so – the demands of keeping another being well. How risky to jump from one side to the other without the security that, if your tired arms ask for rest, a strong net will prevent you from collapsing to the ground.

The illusion that asking for help is for the weak, irresponsible and incompetent makes us believe that we need to handle the impossible, alone. We pay for loneliness with our time, our sleep, our health. We look at the children and, even though we love their smiles a lot, we continue to know that the bill is high and never balanced.

Tiredness robs us of the energy and patience needed to carry out our daily juggling activities. Thus, we lose the hand, take out on the offspring the exhaustion that hurts the bones and sleep with the certainty that we are doing everything wrong. A new day begins, we add yesterday’s tiredness to today’s and continue because the show must go on.

I know you didn’t ask me for advice, but I want to give it anyway. I want to leaflet in front of maternity wards and pediatric surgeries: ask for help. Urgently seek to build this network. Worth the neighbor and the neighbor, those responsible for the school friend, friends and friends without children who make a point of saying that they are proud uncles and aunts. Your family can’t support you? Knock on another door. You don’t have to do it alone.

Children ask for village, team, community, group, in short, the name you want to give and that represents something collective, bigger than you. The diversity of care makes the child expand the repertoire of the world and helps us to breathe more calmly.

Sometimes we will need the net to support our weight when we feel in free fall, to hold what our hands can no longer grasp until we regain strength and start over. Sometimes, just because we know it exists, that it is right there, within our reach, we will launch ourselves into high and courageous flights that we would never have done without it. It just can’t be without.

I wish that between pride and despair, a net calms you down.