Care, Between Everything · Part 4 · The Myth of Self-Care

Self-care has become remarkably good at looking like something you need to leave the house to do. A massage. A manicure. A long lunch. A morning alone. All can be wonderful, but for a mother with a baby or young children, they can also require planning, childcare, money and time that simply may not be available.

More importantly, they can distract from a much more basic question: are you being cared for in the ordinary hours of your day?

Because care is not only what happens when somebody else takes over. It is also what keeps you fed, rested, comfortable and connected to yourself while life is happening.

1. Start With Sustenance Before Indulgence

Before thinking about what would feel like a treat, ask what your body actually needs today.

Have you eaten? Are you thirsty? Have you been outside? Are you physically comfortable? Do you need to sit down? Is there something you have been putting off because everybody else's needs keep arriving first?

Sometimes the most useful act of self-care is not a bath. It is lunch.

2. Stop Saving the Good Things for Later

Mothers can become remarkably efficient at giving everyone else the better portion, the fresh towel, the comfortable chair or the uninterrupted moment.

Notice where you routinely give yourself what is left.

Use the nice cup. Eat the good fruit. Open the moisturiser you have been saving. Put fresh sheets on the bed because you will sleep in them.

Care can be woven into ordinary life without needing an occasion.

3. Make Physical Comfort Part of the Day

Small physical discomforts accumulate when you spend the day focused on somebody else's body.

Change out of the clothes you have been uncomfortable in for hours. Put your hair up if it is irritating you. Take off the bra that is digging in. Put socks on if your feet are cold. Sit somewhere that actually supports your back while feeding.

These things sound almost too ordinary to call self-care. That is precisely the point.

4. Deal With One Thing That Has Been Bothering You

Care can also mean removing irritation.

Reply to the message hanging over you. Replace the water bottle that leaks. Put the charger where you actually need it. Book the appointment you have postponed. Ask somebody else to handle one household task that has become yours by default.

Not every form of care needs to feel soothing. Sometimes care makes tomorrow easier.

5. Give Yourself the Same Standard of Care

Consider how quickly you respond when your child is hungry, uncomfortable, overtired or needs something.

Then notice what happens when the same signals come from you.

You do not need to respond to every need immediately. But try not to automatically dismiss it either. If you notice that you are hungry, make eating the next thing rather than the thing after the next five things.

6. Ask for Something Specific

“Help me more” can be difficult for another person to translate into action. Make the invisible visible.

“Can you do bath time tonight while I eat?”

“Please take the baby for twenty minutes after dinner.”

“Can you make me something while you're making yours?”

Specific requests turn support into something another person can actually provide.

And where another adult shares responsibility for the home or children, this should not always be framed as asking for a favour. Sometimes it is simply redistributing care.

7. Keep the Manicure

There is nothing wrong with wanting the massage, the manicure, the facial or the afternoon alone. Pleasure matters too.

But they should be additions to care, not substitutes for it.

A massage once a month cannot compensate for a woman who does not get to eat lunch. A manicure does not solve an impossible mental load. An hour alone cannot carry the weight of being the default person every other hour of the week.

Perhaps the better definition of self-care is much less glamorous: making sure the person doing so much of the caring is included in the care.

That is the kind of care we mean here. Not another thing to achieve; not another standard for mothers to meet. Just the ordinary sustenance, comfort, support and attention that should never have become luxuries in the first place.

#carebetweeneverything #alvagrove