Reply to At what point does a favor become a burden?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "At what point does a favor become a burden?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This post and the responses stuck with me last night. I don’t understand why everyone jumped to camps where either the OP or the twin mom is an awful person. The cynicism and judgement is saddening.

It absolutely is a burden to spend an extra 10 minutes every morning helping out another family for several weeks. Tougher still if the OP doesn’t feel any gratitude or close relationship with the other family.

But I can honestly say that it would be an honor if I were in a position make that small sacrifice to help a neighbor out. Especially if that neighbor is recovering from a c-section or otherwise struggling in the weeks after birth. I’d go to bed sleeping better because I had an easy opportunity to do something nice for someone every day. Every morning already you’ve improved someone’s day - that’s awesome!

As a result of this post and the responses, DH and I talked for while last night about how isolated families are and how hard it is to ask for or receive support. We’re going to look for more ways to proactively volunteer to help our neighbors or the families of our kid’s classmates. We both work full time and struggle with the usual time-money-energy balances, but we have yet to regret any of the small ways we’ve extended ourselves in the past.[/quote]

:roll: barf.

Gold star for you, PP.  except, you know, you haven't done jack sh*t, and no where near what Op has already done for Twin Mom, but you've already claimed credit.  Gag me with a spoon.[/quote]

Wow, you sound like you’re still hung over from the weekend. Or this morning.  [/quote]

No, just sick of self-aggrandizement bullsh*tters.  She had a discussion with her DH about this?  I call BS.[/quote]

I'm the "spoke to my DH" poster from 9:56 the other day. Yep, actually did. In part because every time we extend ourselves for another family, we do it together. If I'm going to take time from our family to spend time on someone else's, he has to do more childcare. And vice versa. And we discuss unusual purchases with each other. He's a teacher and he calls me when he's thinking about dropping $100 on pizza for his classes or a club he sponsors. Ditto when I want to buy flowers or a present for someone.

Sarcastic "honor" responses aside, we're working on making good on this intention. We've signed up to make postpartum meals for a few friendly acquaintances and offered to help grocery shop for a neighbor with cancer (hope she takes us up on it). We do more for our good friends, but this is about pushing ourselves beyond our own circle. Not too much more just yet, but we'll keep looking for ways to help. I'm sure we'll get more mocking on this post, but we'd honestly love any suggestions. We're contemplating mentoring a refugee family through IRC.

And for that person who wondered about our circumstances.. we have stable family-friendly jobs (he's a teacher with a short commute and I have a technical 8-5 job with 10% travel, an hour commute each way, and rare weekend work), one toddler, and a dog. We pay someone to help clean once a month. Some close family nearby which helps with babysitting maybe quarterly. The fact that my DH does at least half at home really makes the difference so that we collectively have time/energy to give back. [/quote]

It's wonderful you are so generous with your time. Maybe you can find out where OP is, and if it's close enough you can take responsibility for bringing the neighbor's child to work?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics