Oh, goodness. The Sleeping Queens years! We played the hell out of that game at my house. Long enough that my kids and I all started wondering out loud at the implications of the King "claiming" his queen. Like, what if she doesn't wanna be claimed? Does anyone ever get to claim anyone anyway? ("I claim you!" I would insist. "Forever and ever you are mine!" "I will always be yours, Mommy, but I might be someone else's too." And my heart would both swell and break in that moment...)
Anyway! I am reminded of this moment when I was in high school, when I got into a fight with my dad because he sat down at the dinner table, looked around, and said, "There's no butter on the table..." He didn't then get up to get the butter. He didn't say, Hey, I'd love butter to go with this meal. Could someone go get it? He just said, "There's no butter" and expected that one of us (my mother, most likely) would immediately interpret this statement as a need and jump up to fetch the butter. I remember saying something smart-aleck, like, What? Are your legs broken? Or, So, go get it! And then he got mad at me and my mom stepped in and got the butter and told me it was no big deal. And I, being about 15 at the time, insisted it WAS ABSOLUTELY A BIG DEAL.
This hypervigilance has so much gender-coding to it. That's how we're taught to be, as female-identified people. But also, certainly in my case, there's generations of enabling behavior that's tied in with the gender stuff because I come from addicts and alcoholics, which included women, but were mostly men. And I was taught, both implicitly and explicitly, that men were just like that and the women of the family were tasked as a result with "taking care of business", which meant hustling and anticipating constantly. It's all freaking exhausting.
I have tried to interrupt this with my own children. Getting divorced helped. But it's still a deeply ingrained tendency that I have to interrupt continually. I don't know that I'll ever be done.
YES, gender coding is thick in here! I was thinking about that after finishing the piece. I appreciate "I don't know that I'll ever be done." Helps me be more realistic and patient with the process of all of this because if someone as wise as Asha is still working on it, I don't feel so bad for taking steps forward and back, too.
You're a sweetheart. Wise, maybe. Mostly just trying to make sense of all of it, which was the only way to avoid being imprisoned/institutionalized/addicted beyond reckoning.
You have described a situation that could have taken place in my family of origin. I'm 65, but at 14 in a highly patriarchal family (and I was a young feminist thanks to an amazing 8th grade English teacher who loaned me her copy of The Feminine Mystique among other feminist works ~ that woman changed my life!)...I remember a similar dinner table comment from my father to which I responded rebelliously, and the fall out (the mocking from my older brothers, the fury from my father that I had tried to upend the social order, but most painfully, the scolding from my mother) created fear and anxiety in me. What has been the source of healing and growth (and "interruption" of the cycle) for me has been working hard in my relationships to carefully construct boundaries. It helped that I married a man who was open to working with me.
I also came from a family of alcoholics and addicts and the stuff I learned as "normal" growing up was all about females taking care of males, to the point of being expected to understand and provde what males "needed" when they didn't say a word. I can offer some hope from beyond 50 as I, now 69, feel more liberated from all that than I ever have. It got a LOT easier. Give yourself patience, friends, and self-care as much as possible.
This is so relatable. I grew up in a family with codependent tendencies, and in my childhood as well as adult life tried to manage other people's emotions, predict their needs, and fix their problems. I took on the anxieties and fears of people around me to the point where I couldn't tell what was truly mine and what belonged to others. I've been doing a lot of deconditioning work around this in therapy, learning how to hold space for loved ones without letting what they're going through become *my* problem to solve. I am learning there is a difference between being there for someone, and supporting them, and getting overly emotionally involved and attached to the outcomes of their lives and decisions. It's so tricky! I have been doing grounding work to center my emotional state and be more in touch with how I'm truly feeling, which can help me understand what's "mine" and what's "theirs." This is especially hard with my 5 year old, so the part in your essay about wanting to protect your kids while also acknowledging that part of our job as parents is to help them navigate the complexities and challenges of life really landed for me. Modeling naming feelings and needs is a great start.
I have always been confused by the term codependency, so very grateful for your clear explanation of it here, Hannah. Thank you! Nice to know I've got sisters on the journey.
It's very confusing and often stigmatized!! I consider myself to be an independent person who loves being alone, and has a stable and equitable partnership in my marriage, so when my therapist used the word "codependent" to describe my family dynamics in childhood I was confused too. I have identified that in my case, codependency means that I feel an overwhelming responsibility on my shoulders for the feelings of people I love - and I go to great lengths, often de-prioritizing my own feelings, in an attempt to make them feel "better."
My excellent friend and coach Renee Freedman taught me decades ago that my efforts to “help” were predicated on the (arrogant, presumptive) belief that others were incompetent & I was superior. “Judgment is the first step to supremacy”
Yes , yes, yes.. this was my role in my family of origin and I became a therapist !! Talk about turning it into a job. 😂 I’m taking a sabbatical in June and it’s been 45 years coming. I’m so excited to paint and play tennis and read and write and garden and help usher my son into middle school without rushing to the next thing. I’ve failed 3 times at taking a sabbatical. I freak out when I’m not « needed » to figure out other people ‘s feelings. But it’s so important that I do this to regulate my system and require rewire , like you said.
If you want a great app idea ( and it’s free and the design is lovely) , I started using « How we Feel » ( iPhone only, I think...). It’s really great to help identify feelings a few times a day. They don’t pay me, but I’m here to anticipate YOUR NEEDS!! 😂😇🫶🏻
Dorothy, I'm taking a sabbatical in July/August for the first time! This makes me feel like we must be on to something good. We got this! Thanks for the app suggestion.
“You’re in your happy place. You’re reading Gay Ross on the couch.” Hahahaha! omg YES. My son loves to fill (very cheap, precarious) buckets with lukewarm water and put my feet in them on the (ugly, cheap) kitchen floor. He’s mimicking Fancy Nancy and I’m here for it! So cute and I’m like, “You know what? He’s right! I do need to sit down and relax for a minute.”
It can be a Herculean task to identify and clearly state your needs and desires in a culture that likes to pretend you have none. It’s heavy lifting a lot of us are doing right now and it’s going to help everyone (including mom) but it’s rough work some days. Sending you roses and cozy socks as you contemplate and decipher! 🌹 📚
My 5 year old son will snuggle in bed and give me a “proper back scratch”. His dad is super loving and I like that we are modelling a really giving relationship.
I feel this (despite being socialized male). My favorite take on this phenomenon is what Emily Nagoski calls "human giver syndrome," building on Kate Manne's work. I re-listen to this episode every time I need to remind myself of how our system impacts women, and this piece around anticipating needs and giving in particular:
One of the great fallacies is that we ever know what we are doing. Then we turn around and blame earlier selves for our lack of initiation into the rites of adulthood. Adulthood begins when our parents have died and we have passed through significant rites of passage-including child raising. Patience and compassion are hard to come by about our so-called hard wiring. Bodies come first, not last. Human nature is real. I am a tree that goes through all seasons and suffers wear. Also, empathy i recently realized, which is one of my superpowers does not equal care. As an artist I can;t care to the level of my empathy. Whatcha gonna do?
Thanks, Courtney, for spelling out so clearly, so humanely, the process so many of us have to navigate. By watching my grandmother and my mother giving and forgiving, I learned some good habits and some bad ones. I'm pleased to see that you are already getting an excellent re-education from your daughters. The day I realized that I couldn't solve the problems of my grown-up children, because they gently told me to butt out, turned out to be a good day. The other great relief is knowing that others don't have to be perfect, and neither do I. Literature taught me that, around the time I started reading Jane Austen. I am SO grateful to the writers among us who understand and beautifully express the human condition, including YOU!
So many truly inspiring comments this time! My reaction is sheer joy at the glorious smile on Stella’s beautiful face as she enjoys this book!
Have others seen the incomparable documentary called “Judy Bloom Forever”? It’s a terrific testimony to the power of those writers like Courtney who make magical works and worlds of parenting and children come brilliantly alive. Thanks for this genius! DD
This hit me right in the gut. I've been working on disassembling this profound drive I've had all my life to be the One Who Knows, the one who can anticipate every person's need by honing in on the first sideways glance. This was instilled in me early -- 6 or 7 -- and at 56, I'm still untangling. And Ross Gay. Oh! Ross Gay!
I can do identify and I think most people socialized as female -- and plenty of people socialized as male -- can do. Like Hannah below, I have identified a lot of co-dependent and enmeshment behviours in the family I grew up with and also the family I have created for myself. Disentangling that is no hard. If you're looking for resources in this area, I highly recommend two episodes in particular of the wonderful podcast Being Well with Rick and Forrest Hanson, called Discovering Your Wants and Needs, and How to Effectively Communicate What You Want. Here's a link to the first one: https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-discovering-your-wants-and-needs/
So much learning and growing to be done. Thanks for writing about this!
“Our psychic lives are mycelium of adaptive and maladaptive mindsets, first formed in childhood, that we intertwine, under and above ground, with those we love. We over-send some signals. Neglect some until they flash bright and angry.” Beautiful. And so is the work of re-rooting, when those early containers leave us root-bound and resentful.
Feel the same way at times. Way too over sharing as my saner sister would say but they're the ones that readers seem to take to heart. Helps the world feel less of a lonely place
Me too. ;) Progress not perfection, I remind myself. Keep up the good work. Your daughters and future self will be so grateful for it.
I am new to Substack, and new to you, reading Learning in Public and wishing we were next door neighbors. Your story has made me feel less alone (I live in Minneapolis, where we are navigating a district-coordinated integration effort) and has inspired me to speak up. Maybe you'd like my poem: https://edithnicole.substack.com/p/unearned-at-great-cost-900?sd=pf. Thanks for all you share, especially your vulnerability and courage. What a great combination.
Oh, goodness. The Sleeping Queens years! We played the hell out of that game at my house. Long enough that my kids and I all started wondering out loud at the implications of the King "claiming" his queen. Like, what if she doesn't wanna be claimed? Does anyone ever get to claim anyone anyway? ("I claim you!" I would insist. "Forever and ever you are mine!" "I will always be yours, Mommy, but I might be someone else's too." And my heart would both swell and break in that moment...)
Anyway! I am reminded of this moment when I was in high school, when I got into a fight with my dad because he sat down at the dinner table, looked around, and said, "There's no butter on the table..." He didn't then get up to get the butter. He didn't say, Hey, I'd love butter to go with this meal. Could someone go get it? He just said, "There's no butter" and expected that one of us (my mother, most likely) would immediately interpret this statement as a need and jump up to fetch the butter. I remember saying something smart-aleck, like, What? Are your legs broken? Or, So, go get it! And then he got mad at me and my mom stepped in and got the butter and told me it was no big deal. And I, being about 15 at the time, insisted it WAS ABSOLUTELY A BIG DEAL.
This hypervigilance has so much gender-coding to it. That's how we're taught to be, as female-identified people. But also, certainly in my case, there's generations of enabling behavior that's tied in with the gender stuff because I come from addicts and alcoholics, which included women, but were mostly men. And I was taught, both implicitly and explicitly, that men were just like that and the women of the family were tasked as a result with "taking care of business", which meant hustling and anticipating constantly. It's all freaking exhausting.
I have tried to interrupt this with my own children. Getting divorced helped. But it's still a deeply ingrained tendency that I have to interrupt continually. I don't know that I'll ever be done.
YES, gender coding is thick in here! I was thinking about that after finishing the piece. I appreciate "I don't know that I'll ever be done." Helps me be more realistic and patient with the process of all of this because if someone as wise as Asha is still working on it, I don't feel so bad for taking steps forward and back, too.
You're a sweetheart. Wise, maybe. Mostly just trying to make sense of all of it, which was the only way to avoid being imprisoned/institutionalized/addicted beyond reckoning.
You have described a situation that could have taken place in my family of origin. I'm 65, but at 14 in a highly patriarchal family (and I was a young feminist thanks to an amazing 8th grade English teacher who loaned me her copy of The Feminine Mystique among other feminist works ~ that woman changed my life!)...I remember a similar dinner table comment from my father to which I responded rebelliously, and the fall out (the mocking from my older brothers, the fury from my father that I had tried to upend the social order, but most painfully, the scolding from my mother) created fear and anxiety in me. What has been the source of healing and growth (and "interruption" of the cycle) for me has been working hard in my relationships to carefully construct boundaries. It helped that I married a man who was open to working with me.
I also came from a family of alcoholics and addicts and the stuff I learned as "normal" growing up was all about females taking care of males, to the point of being expected to understand and provde what males "needed" when they didn't say a word. I can offer some hope from beyond 50 as I, now 69, feel more liberated from all that than I ever have. It got a LOT easier. Give yourself patience, friends, and self-care as much as possible.
This is so relatable. I grew up in a family with codependent tendencies, and in my childhood as well as adult life tried to manage other people's emotions, predict their needs, and fix their problems. I took on the anxieties and fears of people around me to the point where I couldn't tell what was truly mine and what belonged to others. I've been doing a lot of deconditioning work around this in therapy, learning how to hold space for loved ones without letting what they're going through become *my* problem to solve. I am learning there is a difference between being there for someone, and supporting them, and getting overly emotionally involved and attached to the outcomes of their lives and decisions. It's so tricky! I have been doing grounding work to center my emotional state and be more in touch with how I'm truly feeling, which can help me understand what's "mine" and what's "theirs." This is especially hard with my 5 year old, so the part in your essay about wanting to protect your kids while also acknowledging that part of our job as parents is to help them navigate the complexities and challenges of life really landed for me. Modeling naming feelings and needs is a great start.
I have always been confused by the term codependency, so very grateful for your clear explanation of it here, Hannah. Thank you! Nice to know I've got sisters on the journey.
It's very confusing and often stigmatized!! I consider myself to be an independent person who loves being alone, and has a stable and equitable partnership in my marriage, so when my therapist used the word "codependent" to describe my family dynamics in childhood I was confused too. I have identified that in my case, codependency means that I feel an overwhelming responsibility on my shoulders for the feelings of people I love - and I go to great lengths, often de-prioritizing my own feelings, in an attempt to make them feel "better."
Beautifully said.
My excellent friend and coach Renee Freedman taught me decades ago that my efforts to “help” were predicated on the (arrogant, presumptive) belief that others were incompetent & I was superior. “Judgment is the first step to supremacy”
UGH, just waking up to this. I have a hard time understanding what is and is not judgmental.
As previous comments say, The Work Is Never Done. What is important is to keep doing the work.
Yes , yes, yes.. this was my role in my family of origin and I became a therapist !! Talk about turning it into a job. 😂 I’m taking a sabbatical in June and it’s been 45 years coming. I’m so excited to paint and play tennis and read and write and garden and help usher my son into middle school without rushing to the next thing. I’ve failed 3 times at taking a sabbatical. I freak out when I’m not « needed » to figure out other people ‘s feelings. But it’s so important that I do this to regulate my system and require rewire , like you said.
If you want a great app idea ( and it’s free and the design is lovely) , I started using « How we Feel » ( iPhone only, I think...). It’s really great to help identify feelings a few times a day. They don’t pay me, but I’m here to anticipate YOUR NEEDS!! 😂😇🫶🏻
Dorothy, I'm taking a sabbatical in July/August for the first time! This makes me feel like we must be on to something good. We got this! Thanks for the app suggestion.
Thanks for the app suggestion. I just downloaded it. Looks interesting…
“You’re in your happy place. You’re reading Gay Ross on the couch.” Hahahaha! omg YES. My son loves to fill (very cheap, precarious) buckets with lukewarm water and put my feet in them on the (ugly, cheap) kitchen floor. He’s mimicking Fancy Nancy and I’m here for it! So cute and I’m like, “You know what? He’s right! I do need to sit down and relax for a minute.”
It can be a Herculean task to identify and clearly state your needs and desires in a culture that likes to pretend you have none. It’s heavy lifting a lot of us are doing right now and it’s going to help everyone (including mom) but it’s rough work some days. Sending you roses and cozy socks as you contemplate and decipher! 🌹 📚
Love that it's your son doing that. Gives me hope!
My 5 year old son will snuggle in bed and give me a “proper back scratch”. His dad is super loving and I like that we are modelling a really giving relationship.
The. Best.
I feel this (despite being socialized male). My favorite take on this phenomenon is what Emily Nagoski calls "human giver syndrome," building on Kate Manne's work. I re-listen to this episode every time I need to remind myself of how our system impacts women, and this piece around anticipating needs and giving in particular:
Check out this Podcast: 03: Human Giver Syndrome https://player.fm/1yXRRW
Burnout is one of my favorite books !! Thanks for staying in touch with this work as a male identifying person. It gives me some hope to know this.
Me too!
Thank you so much for this rec.
You might really enjoy the book, Just a Thought, by Amy Johnson, PhD. It helped me untangle some of this same stuff.
Thank you!
Youre doing great work here, Courtney Martin. Listen to yourself carefully. And put that thing back down.
One of the great fallacies is that we ever know what we are doing. Then we turn around and blame earlier selves for our lack of initiation into the rites of adulthood. Adulthood begins when our parents have died and we have passed through significant rites of passage-including child raising. Patience and compassion are hard to come by about our so-called hard wiring. Bodies come first, not last. Human nature is real. I am a tree that goes through all seasons and suffers wear. Also, empathy i recently realized, which is one of my superpowers does not equal care. As an artist I can;t care to the level of my empathy. Whatcha gonna do?
Thanks, Courtney, for spelling out so clearly, so humanely, the process so many of us have to navigate. By watching my grandmother and my mother giving and forgiving, I learned some good habits and some bad ones. I'm pleased to see that you are already getting an excellent re-education from your daughters. The day I realized that I couldn't solve the problems of my grown-up children, because they gently told me to butt out, turned out to be a good day. The other great relief is knowing that others don't have to be perfect, and neither do I. Literature taught me that, around the time I started reading Jane Austen. I am SO grateful to the writers among us who understand and beautifully express the human condition, including YOU!
And you, apparently! This is so beautifully put. Thank you Amy.
So many truly inspiring comments this time! My reaction is sheer joy at the glorious smile on Stella’s beautiful face as she enjoys this book!
Have others seen the incomparable documentary called “Judy Bloom Forever”? It’s a terrific testimony to the power of those writers like Courtney who make magical works and worlds of parenting and children come brilliantly alive. Thanks for this genius! DD
This hit me right in the gut. I've been working on disassembling this profound drive I've had all my life to be the One Who Knows, the one who can anticipate every person's need by honing in on the first sideways glance. This was instilled in me early -- 6 or 7 -- and at 56, I'm still untangling. And Ross Gay. Oh! Ross Gay!
The One Who Knows + the One Who is Okay. Right?
Yes. The One Who is Okay is much kinder than the One Who Knows. And frankly, far more fun.
I can do identify and I think most people socialized as female -- and plenty of people socialized as male -- can do. Like Hannah below, I have identified a lot of co-dependent and enmeshment behviours in the family I grew up with and also the family I have created for myself. Disentangling that is no hard. If you're looking for resources in this area, I highly recommend two episodes in particular of the wonderful podcast Being Well with Rick and Forrest Hanson, called Discovering Your Wants and Needs, and How to Effectively Communicate What You Want. Here's a link to the first one: https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-discovering-your-wants-and-needs/
So much learning and growing to be done. Thanks for writing about this!
Thanks so much for the recs.
“Our psychic lives are mycelium of adaptive and maladaptive mindsets, first formed in childhood, that we intertwine, under and above ground, with those we love. We over-send some signals. Neglect some until they flash bright and angry.” Beautiful. And so is the work of re-rooting, when those early containers leave us root-bound and resentful.
Love that extension of the metaphor, Ryan. Thank you!
Feel the same way at times. Way too over sharing as my saner sister would say but they're the ones that readers seem to take to heart. Helps the world feel less of a lonely place
Me too. ;) Progress not perfection, I remind myself. Keep up the good work. Your daughters and future self will be so grateful for it.
I am new to Substack, and new to you, reading Learning in Public and wishing we were next door neighbors. Your story has made me feel less alone (I live in Minneapolis, where we are navigating a district-coordinated integration effort) and has inspired me to speak up. Maybe you'd like my poem: https://edithnicole.substack.com/p/unearned-at-great-cost-900?sd=pf. Thanks for all you share, especially your vulnerability and courage. What a great combination.
Keep speaking up!