Why Support is Best Given Invisibly
Support is patience on the hike while the kid has a snack.
When Holden was a brand new infant, with a cone head and pink, translucent skin, my partner (and my mom and Bob Doula of course) brought me glasses of water and snacks while I nursed the baby for hours. They did the laundry, cleaned the house and helped cook nourishing postpartum meals. They brought me coffee in bed with just the right amount of cream. Every night still, Max rubs my back while I nurse Holden.
As the toddler in Holden becomes more pronounced, support is time, communication, understanding and attention. It is giving each other enough time to get work done so that we can fully show up for each other. It is cleaning the floor late at night after we’ve all gone to bed and making sure healthy food is readily and easily available. Meaningful support is consistent, often invisible, always reciprocal and it’s something I feel in the energy surrounding me.
Recently, I’ve been reading, researching and writing about parental support. I learned that this word is ill-defined because it is inherently psychological. The type of support we receive, and whether we find it satisfactory, impacts how we actually receive it. When we perceive support as the kind we need and want during pregnancy, labor tends to progress more smoothly and we birth healthier babies.
Multiple studies have shown links between social support and physical and mental health. For pregnant people, support decreases stress, which decreases stress-related biochemical processes in the body, which impacts our perception of stressful events, and trickles down into how we experience pregnancy and birth. When the support we want is the support we get, we experience more embodied births, less depression and higher quality of life.
Indirect and Unobtrusive
Oddly, I feel supported and delighted when Max is goofy and plays along with my jokes. (Don’t worry, there’s not a baby in this stroller! He’s in my arms).
But support isn’t simple. It’s a psychological experience. While we say we want to be supported, studies have shown that when we know we are receiving support, we tend to feel worse after getting it. Our stress increases and we can feel indebted or dependent, or like we’re incapable of handling the stress of living.
This is why support is often best received when we don’t know we’re receiving it. We do best when this thing we want and need is kept invisible. When the giver and the receiver don’t define their roles as giver and receiver, but rather give and receive indirectly and unobtrusively, both parties feel good.
It’s the difference between your partner taking out the trash and telling you about it, versus coming home to a clean home and them greeting you without bringing attention to their cleaning. In one case, you might feel grateful, but also annoyed, that your partner is letting you know they are giving you something. In the other case, you get a global sense of receiving, and of shared receiving, without having to bring it up.
What makes support and feeling supported even more complicated is our awareness, expectations, communication and relationships. If we expect our partners to be perfect and for the house to exist in a state of perpetual spotlessness (my dream by the way), our expectations nose dive us into disappointment and we feel utterly alone.
If we don’t notice the invisible support we receive, say when a partner changes the oil in the car, our awareness misses out on the invisible but important acts of support. If, in our relationships our communication doesn’t allow us to speak clearly about our expectations and what support looks like, it can be harder for two people to understand how each needs to give and receive.
I’ve expected too much, noticed too little, communicated poorly and I’ve been blindsided by an anger-inducing mess in front of me even when the oil did get changed. But, over the years as my partner and I communicate more about what support means to the other, I notice that I receive more of the best kinds of invisible support and give more too. My partner builds garden beds, cleans more and helps me manage the household tasks of daily life. I help him organize his belongings and prepare and cook our food. Sometimes, after cleaning the house and refolding and reorganizing all of his belongings, I’ll watch him a bit slyly, waiting for the moment when he inevitably notices and gives me a grateful grin followed by a bear hug. The next day, he’ll clean my car and wax my skis.
Quiet Gestures
Providing support invisibly, without bringing too much attention to it, works both in our actions and the way we communicate. This means, instead of sharing our own story of discomfort or distress when someone tells us they are uncomfortable or in distress, we listen and learn. Our primary focus is understanding another person’s perspective and this takes asking questions and withholding judgment. Saying, “it could be worse” or sharing your much worse story acts to minimize the other persons experience. This has the unfortunate effect of making us feel unseen, misunderstood, vulnerable and angry.
I’m still learning how to support others, but my mom and my partner continue to show me that small, consistent gestures, just showing up and working hard to help things become more ok when they are hard are the most important forms of support we can give. My partner learned how to give openly and abundantly from his mom. We are so lucky to have people in our life who show us what love and support looks like so we can show it to our son and each other.
Support is about actions, humility and a remarkable ability to pay attention to another person’s unspoken needs and then to meet them with invisible, yet tangible, kindness. The way we treat each other, and support each other, impacts us so much that it can alter our physiology and how we birth and raise babies. Support is more than essential, it is life and survival, community and reciprocity, complicated because we’re humans, but amazing because it allows us to breath a little easier through life.
What invisible actions make you feel the most supported? How do you communicate them to your partner and what forms of support were the most important to you during pregnancy, birth and postpartum?
References
Breines, J. (2014, June 24). What kinds of support are most supportive? Psychology Today. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-love-and-war/201406/what-kinds-support-are-most-supportive
Elsenbruch, S., Benson, S., Rucke, M., Rose, M., Dudenhausen, J., Pincus-Knackstedt, M. K.,…Arck, P.C. (2007). Social support during pregnancy: effects on maternal depressive symptoms, smoking and pregnancy outcome. Human Reproduction, 22(3), 869-77. doi: 10.1093/humrep/del432