Self care has been a buzz word in the parenting community for quite some time, especially during and after the pandemic when parents were floundering for some type of release valve during the stress of lockdown.

Instagram and many parenting experts told parents to get some “self care” with little direction or acknowledgment of the difficulty of that task.

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Experts spout the importance of self care yet they often give general and unrealistic suggestions: Go on a date night! Get a pedicure! Go for a massage!

And very rarely do they acknowledge how to make these moments happen -- and that self care often involves community care. As a society, we cannot put self care solely on the singular parent. An individual parent often needs friends and family, a community, for self care to happen.

It’s been helpful to me, especially after becoming a mom, to think intentionally about self care. I found myself depleted and without any path forward to find time for myself. I realized that self care was not a frivolous request or a manicure that happened once a month. Self care was the nourishing of the self.

Self care wasn’t a desire; it was a need. But how could I nourish myself? How could I even get through the next day with these littles ones crying at my feet every time I stood up? I knew I needed to pour into my own cup, but I was paralyzed as to how to logistically make that happen.

As I began to read Kristen Neff’s work about self-compassion and Adrienne Maree Brown’s work on the power of the collective, I realized that the idea of only “self” care was, well, bologna.

How could a mother of a five-year-old and two toddlers find time for herself without help? I wanted to go for a walk, take a long shower, or the unimaginable: read a book. I wanted to live Audre Lorde’s definition of self-care: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation[...]." I felt this deeply, yet I did not know how I could possibly make these simple acts happen.

If I wanted to take an uninterrupted shower (keyword is uninterrupted), I needed to ask someone to keep the kids from barging in. If no one was home, I had a baby in a bouncy seat and a toddler asking for snacks on the bathroom floor while I showered. This is not a very relaxing scene.

If I wanted to go for a walk, technically I could put the kids in the stroller, and I did that often, but during that stroller ride, I was still having to give my energy to keeping the kids engaged and cared for. (Side note: why is it in televisions and movies those babies ride in strollers and you never hear a peep?)

As for reading a book, I couldn’t even find the time to buy a book or go to the library.

I had to stop being so invested in the idea of “doing it all” and being self-reliant if I was going to find a way to incorporate consistent “self” care into my parenting journey. I had to ask for help, and I also needed others to offer help.

Community care asks for us to be attuned to our own needs and our community’s needs. The hope is that community care is reciprocal and that we can learn to know when we should be the givers of support or the receivers, all depending on the season of our lives.

Here’s what community care can look like:

  • Offering to make a meal for someone.
    • Offering to come over and watch the kids while a parent takes an hour to themselves without any questions or responsibilities.
      • Cleaning someone else’s bathroom or doing their dishes.
        • Calling a friend and just listening and holding space for them.
          • Offering to take everyone to the library
            • Organizing a babysitting share or swap
              • Take a friend on a walk, or take the child on a walk and leave them to take a long, hot shower all by themselves

                Here are some organizations that can help build your parenting community:

                We weren't meant to do this alone. While self care is important and necessary for parents, we need to acknowledge that for most parents, community care is also needed. We must all step up to help one another when it is our season to give, and we must also ask for help when it is our season to receive. Throughout the course of our parenting journey, these seasons will come and go, ebb and flow, but if we all become attuned to our own needs and those around us, I think we could really make self/community care happen.