So now that we have established that raising children isn’t the blissful dream that we all thought it would be and the term “hot mess” applies to just about everything but no one knows quite what it means; lets figure out where to go from here.

Again here, bold words if you’re short on time and just read the last paragraph and such because that is too much bold to be made bold.

Support, Support, Support

When I look into research measuring the effectiveness of support groups for children with developmental delays, child who have emotional challenges, cancer patients, single parents…okay I could really go on for days from here…I find significant evidence that it [support] helps.  WHAT?!?!  I know NO ONE is really shocked by this but science says support is awesome for us.  Looking back in to human evolution many scientists see how we banded together in small groups of hunters and gatherers.  I know what you are thinking; we already passed middle school science and history!  Yes we did, but we haven’t managed to put all the pieces together.  How much have we changed biologically over the past million years or so.  Yep we’ve gotten bigger, stronger, smarter, blah, blah, blah……BUT WE DID NOT STOP NEEDING EACH OTHER!  And yet our brilliant, faster, biologically superior selves have become so isolated.  Guess what increased… depression, anxiety, obesity, every single (ok maybe not every) bad thing that can happen to our bodies and brains are happening.

I will acknowledge that there are more preservatives in our foods, there are more pollutants, living longer provides more opportunity for things to go wrong, natural selection is occurring less often due to medical advances.  I refuse to believe that these are the reasons people are more stressed, less happy, and the least connected that we have ever been.

How well do you know your neighbor?  Like really… their name? The car they drive? The color of their hair?  Their kid’s names?  Their job?  Their support system?  Medical conditions?  Ummmm I’m guessing probably not.  I’m not saying that you should go next door tonight with a check list, but why don’t we know these things anymore?  I remember growing up and knowing who’s mom made the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  When my mother and father grew up they had city landmarks as their boundaries.  When my grandmother grew up they would swap shoe vouchers with the neighbors that needed them for sugar or butter or something like that.

I know what your thinking here too.   The world is different now; there are so many scary things.  You are right and we made it that way.  There are more people, therefore more scary people but there are still more GOOD people.  WE ALL JUST STOPPED TALKING TO EACH OTHER AND WATCHING OUT FOR ONE ANOTHER.   Why? Why? Oh why would we do this?  How could we do it?  We have more access, more ways to communicated instantly?  You are reading my ideas on a computer that can update the second I type a word? Lovely People, we need to make a change and we need to do it together.  Talk more to people, be open more with people, be supportive, be willing to receive support, play games (I’m a play therapist this is an answer for just about everything),  start thinking that we are put on this earth to help each other because there has never been a time on this earth that we have been able to make it without the love and support from another human.  

So this is where we start.  Let’s just give it a try for a few weeks and see what happens.  And please, share it with the rest of us.