Self-care is child-care: Why filling our own cup as parents is good for the family

I have been working for a while now on understanding myself better, come to recognize many of my habitual thought patterns and behaviors that are borne out of anxiety, and use mindfulness, deep, slow breaths and fulfilling my needs to “parent” myself.

And I noticed a striking thing: When I start the morning consciously, with a cup of coffee, deep breaths, and being in the moment, my daughter is usually happy, relaxed, and hangs out around my husband and me, playing with us or by herself.

But when I fall back into my old patterns, when I wake up and immediately worry about all the things I have to do that day, when I feel I don’t have the time to fill my own cup and take care of myself and my needs, my daughter becomes unhappy, stressed, and unable to occupy herself with any one thing for more than a few moments, unsatisfied with anything and everything.

And when we take an evolutionary perspective, this response makes complete sense. 

Because….

A family is a system.

A system where all members affect all the other members.

A system where all members are affected by all other members.  

As a family, we are woven together like a tapestry. We each share in each other’s happiness – and in each other’s sorrow.

And we share in each other’s stress as well.

We share in these things whether we want to or not. It’s what we’ve evolved to do.

Not all animals are so intensely (and obligatorily) interconnected. Solitary animals, such as jaguars, are probably not very moved by the emotions of other jaguars.

No human is an island – but all jaguars are, for most of their lives.

Jaguars need their space to survive, a large area to hunt in – alone.

Humans need a community to survive. Any human left alone doesn’t survive for long.

Humans thrive best when we pull together as part of team Human.

Because of this, we have evolved many abilities that knit us together.

Such as empathy.

Empathy allows us to feel what another person is feeling. If you see someone with tears in their eyes, you may find yourself suddenly feeling their sadness; if you see someone jumping for joy, you may find yourself suddenly with a big smile on your face.

It is not just emotions that are shared, but more basic physiological reactions as well, such as stress. And we don’t really have much choice in the matter.

Stress is contagious, just like a yawn or the common cold.

Stress is an evolved physiological response that prepares us to respond to some danger.

And so if we are part of the same group and you are stressed, it makes evolutionary sense for me to be stressed as well. You may see a jaguar in the tree or a snake in the tall grass – but whatever it may be, we should all get on the same page.

And this emotional contagion is even more intense for children.

Children, and especially little children and babies, sense and soak up all the emotions their parents feel, like a sponge.

Because children depend on their parents to survive, and they are finely attuned and pay close attention to their parents’ signals about the environment; about whether it is safe to explore and venture out or whether they should stay close by because of some danger.

So when parents feel stressed, then children feel stressed too. They cannot understand that the stress comes from some concern about the list of tasks we want to complete that day, or from the house being a mess, or from us needing some time to ourselves. They just understand that their parent is stressed, and that, in itself, means they should be stressed as well because there is some sort of danger present.

And so as parents, it is in our children’s best interest to not only think of our children’s wellbeing – but our own wellbeing as well. This may strike us as selfish, but it couldn’t be any farther from the truth. We cannot help our children to be happy if we are miserable; we cannot help them to be peaceful if we are full of stress.

In many ways, the greatest gift we can give our children is the quality of our own being from moment to moment.

This forms a selfless basis for self-care.

This means that self-care is really a form of childcare.

And this holds true, not only for the parent-child relationship, but also for our relationship with our partner, our own parents, our friends, and the cashier at the grocery store.

This also means that self-care is other-care.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly broadcasting the state of our own being out into the world. This is not some new-aged woo woo idea – but human evolutionary biology.

And, so, as a parent – especially as a parent – it is important to put ourselves back into the family system, to think about ourself for the sake of our family.

So let’s commit to making time for ourselves. Time for a walk, a bath, a book, a cup of coffee, meditation, or meeting a friend, or whatever helps you fill your cup and feel well.

***

We may feel like we simply don’t have the time to take care of ourselves, that this is yet another task that creates stress. Be compassionate with yourself. If you can find even just 5 minutes a day, or literally just 1 minute to take a moment, to drink your coffee mindfully or take a deep breath, you may find that it starts to impact how you feel.  

And over time, we may be able to carve out more time.

Actually committing to this, asking another person to look after our child so we can take care of ourselves (or doing so before our child wakes, after they fall asleep, or while they are in daycare or at school) is probably the most challenging part. We just always feel like there is something more pressing – getting some chores done, getting some work done, or taking care of our children; and we feel selfish to inconvenience another person simply so that we can enjoy ourselves for a bit.

But it is not selfish at all!

Remind yourself: Self-care is for the sake of my family! It is a form of child care!

It may be helpful to repeat a sentence such as ‘The family is a system’ or ‘My child’s wellbeing depends on my wellbeing’ as a mantra to ourselves throughout the day or to write it on a piece of paper and stick it to the fridge.

It may also be helpful to observe your family as a system – with you as part of it!

Adopting this perspective, we can observe and really begin to understand how sadness, happiness, boredom, interest, relaxation anxiety, and stress all flow from person to person. Not to judge anyone, or assign blame, but simply to realize the dynamics of our joy and sorrows as a family, to see for ourselves how deeply we are tied into one another.

From this perspective, we can begin to intervene, to interrupt the patterns of sorrow and amplify the joy.

We can make sure we take care of ourselves, to fill our own cup, meet our own needs, so that the whole family can thrive.