To think society should stop glorifying self-care and prioritise community care?

ETA the norm as in expected and virtually required. Just another job, in other words.

I agree. There's also the factor of people moving around more - I've moved twice in the last six years, and in all that time I was my mother's full-time carer. I am really. Not. Interested in taking on anything resembling that role again, let alone for people who are only acquaintances. That's what social services (which seem to be in a better state in my part of Australia than in Britain) are for. I certainly don't want neighbours doing that sort of thing. Feels too much like an exchange of favours would become the norm.

We are in a weird place in society where we are exhausted and therefore need to take care of ourselves and have normalised recharging and taking time for yoh - which is a good thing. And also being true to yourself - for example not forcing yourself to do things you really don’t want to do or that might go against and instinct or desire (example - a friend mentioned how we would push kids to hug a stranger, but if they don’t want to, why should you - strange example but hope it makes sense).

At the same time we are craving connection and that is because we think so much about our own needs that we have forgotten that there is a nice feeling when you are connected to an ecosystem.

Community is so important - and a very good community feeds into your self care routine. The amount of times a person in my network has offered to babysit for instance or has taken me out or invited me somewhere when I’ve spent days at home - all of this feeds into self care and caring for others - if it’s not done as a chore but way of life.

I've been thinking more about this and I think it can be really complicated. For example, thinking back to the time when my DS was born - lots of people wanted to visit, to hold the baby, some brought me home cooked food. That was nice, and that was community.

But then they also criticised me steadily and relentlessly for years, for not mind-reading them at the time and doing what they expected me to do. For example I couldn't eat some of the things that they brought because of food intolerance, and they couldn't hold the baby as much as they wanted. He turned out to be ND and extremely sensitive but we didn't know that at the time, so I couldn't articulate why he needed not to be passed around. There were other factors that caused the problem but family sensitivities meant that I wasn't allowed to ask questions and was expected to just toe the line which meant that the "help" offered was anything but helpful.

I think the community is good but it can also be immensely hard work to maintain. I think we see that in the constant deluge of threads on MN about how to sensitively manage minor conflict at the school gate and at children's parties and all that stuff.

I think that those who do the work to maintain community should be regarded with the respect and gratitude that they deserve, and people should be more understanding when they try to "help" and realise that maybe they should ask first and listen a bit.

This is a really good point.

I also think theres a lot of benefit to the church and other faiths and the communities they create but there’s also control and these are very patriarchal and paternalistic organisations and there are strings attached.

Ditto political parties and charities. I think all these organisations and forms of social support have an agenda, whether it’s moral or political.

One of the reasons people move to cities is because they find these networks and their moral values stifling. They choose to surround themselves with their own ready made communities but they are naturally individualistic people who don’t want their life trajectory shaped by the community they grew up in.

”Self care” is a bit of a bullshit term but I think the most useful thing about it is the ability to draw boundaries and establish how far you want others, including “the community” to impinge upon your life.

A lot of people have spent much of their lives trying to get away from “the community” and have worked really hard to define themselves in opposition to it. These people don’t want to be dragged back into a web of obligations and a moral code determined by someone else.

It does work, if you can establish the gentle contacts, and somehow, it does help to have a nice word with neighbours, get up to date on any issues. Nothing we do is hugely time consuming, or requires huge mental or physical commitment. It’s not structured, nothing is written or expected in tablets of stone.

For context, I do fully understand those that talk about how tired and fed up they are, how any extra thing might seem a huge add on. I am a full time carer with my sister for our very elderly Mum. She has severe dementia, lives her life between a bed and a special chair, but is rich in love and comfort. I also have my lovely OH who gives his help and support, despite having Cancer. He is about to have his fourth big operation, but the love of his family, and the good wishes of all our nice neighbours goes a long way to lightening the load and brightening the day. Offers of help in all sorts of ways have been great.

I think this encouragement towards self-care can be particularly problematic in the workplace, where encouraging resilience and wellness can come at the expense of decent working conditions and adequate staffing levels.
People can't 'resilience' themselves out of everything, and I think the problem with some of this language is that it suggests that with enough inner strength and well-being, any individual can succeed in any circumstance, when actually sometimes the issues are actually structural.
This can obviously apply on a broader societal level too.

totally agree with you.

And not considering how much this work generally fell and still falls to women is significant in itself.

I know you haven't said or implied it, us cynical old hags who have been round the block more than once know how these things worked. So no, not projection. Experience. HTH

But if others (employers in the example you’re giving) were looking out for them more, then they wouldn’t burn out!

If we cared for each other better, self-care wouldn’t need to be a ‘thing’. It wasn’t really a thing we talked about all that much 20 years ago. I think it’s because life has become much more demanding.

Exactly what I was thinking. What OP describes is women's unpaid labour.

The women did do pretty much all that OP is asking to be reinstated.

People might cavil or flinch, or deny - but it was true, in my past.

Because it is women who did all that. It was and is the women of the church who do the helping people. It’s the local women who help the widow. It’s the women keeping an eye on the children. It’s the women making sure others have what they need.

Women got busy. They had to work. They moved away from their families and communities to be able to afford having children.

For me self care and community care are the same thing. I enjoy helping others, meeting new people, being involved, wanted to create a wide network for my children when we moved so they felt confident mixing with a wide range if ages and backgrounds. So I have 3 different voluntary roles (girl guiding, youth sport, parent governor) and love that I can enjoy myself, help others and give my children broader experiences all in one go.

Absolutely. An idea that was so positive and had deep roots in equality and independence has been completely twisted by our system and presented back to us in the form of an expensive hand cream or bath bomb.

But that doesn't stop you having the expectation that it's a 'woman's job'.

Ok yes, 'co-opted' is what I should have said. But actually I meant all the discourse around this phenomenon, not the literal word itself.

It's all manufactured and/or perverting something which exists authentically in a different context, to sell either a product or a system.

'Me-time' bleurgh.

Absolutely!! It smacks of 'WOMEN!!! why have you stopped placing other people above yourself??'

Local community centre looks set to close from lack of interest in anything except staring at a phone

I've known many men involved in volunteering and care for their elderly parents. Community has collapsed as a whole and the main reason seems to be a general selfish mentality.

I even got asked by a colleague "why do you volunteer, you're not even religious". 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yup.

OP it feels that you are asking women to solve your problem?

Great post!