“Of course. They’re little baby birds taking their first steps out of the nest. Let them take risks.”
She felt herself flinch from the idea that her baby birds might fall, naturally identifying with the mother hen. “How do I do that?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You just do it.”
Mmmmmkay.
Julie realized that her “mother henning” was the problem. As a mother hen, she was putting not just the needs, but also the wishes, desires, and total comfort of her students ahead of her own work and sanity.
She wondered if “father cocking” was a thing.
Julie decided to invent it. She began responding to anyone’s assumption that she would take on their responsibilities for them by either telling them that they could handle that task themselves or giving them a name of someone who might be able to help. After a few weeks of this, she compared notes with the band director, and he confirmed that her new approach was more like her predecessor’s.
It was not a universal success. Students complained. Her administrators asked her why she wasn’t taking charge of the play.
“I am taking charge,” she said. “I’m doing everything my predecessor did, everything the director across town does. I’m asking the students to take initiative.”
“Well, they say they don’t feel that you’re supporting them.”
Why did the students feel differently about her as a director than their previous director?
“Human Giver Syndrome,” Amelia suggested. “The expectations for women are different from men, even if no one says it out loud.”
“So…what do I do?”
“Keep doing your job, being awesome at it, and eventually the people you work with get used to the fact that you’re a person, an individual, a director. Their old expectations will be eroded by your competence.”
Julie tried and it helped. Father cocking was smoothing her path through the gendered expectations of her job.
But again, it would turn out not to be enough.
The “Tall Tree” Fairness Test
We can imagine the advantages and disadvantages that shape our lives as similar to the natural environment that shapes a tree as it grows. A tree growing on an open, level field grows straight and tall, toward the sun; a tree that grows on a hillside will also grow toward the sun—which means it will grow at an angle. The steeper the hill, the sharper the angle of the tree, so if we transplant that tree to the level field, it’s going to be a totally different shape from a tree native to that field. Both are adapted to the environment where they grew. We can infer the shape of the environment where a tree grew by looking at the shape of the tree.
White men grow on an open, level field. White women grow on far steeper and rougher terrain because the field wasn’t made for them. Women of color grow not just on a hill, but on a cliffside over the ocean, battered by wind and waves. None of us chooses the landscape in which we’re planted. If you find yourself on an ocean-battered cliff, your only choice is to grow there, or fall into the ocean. So if we transplant a survivor of the steep hill and cliff to the level field, natives of the field may look at that survivor and wonder why she has so much trouble trusting people, systems, and even her own bodily sensations. Why is this tree so bent and gnarled?
It’s because that is what it took to survive in the place where she grew. A tree that’s fought wind and gravity and erosion to grow strong and green on a steep cliff is going to look strange and out of place when moved to the level playing field. The gnarled, wind-blown tree from an oceanside cliff might not conform with our ideas of what a tree should look like, but it works well in the context where it grew. And that tall straight tree wouldn’t stand a chance if it was transplanted to the cliffside.19
One kind of adversity: How many white parents do you know who explicitly teach their children to keep their hands in sight at all times and always say “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” if they are stopped by the police? That’s just standard operating procedure for a lot of African American parents. Black parents in America grow their kids differently, because the landscape their kids are growing in requires it. The stark difference between how people of color are treated by police and how white people are treated results in white people thinking black people are ridiculous for being afraid of the police. We can’t see the ocean, so when black people tell us, “We do this to avoid falling into the ocean,” we don’t understand. But just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. How can we tell? By looking at the shape of the tree. Trees that grow at an angle grew on the side of a hill. People who are afraid of the police grew up in a world where the police are a threat.20
Just because the road looks flat doesn’t mean it is. Just because you can’t see the ocean doesn’t mean it’s not there. You can infer the landscape by looking at the shapes of the people who grew in those environments. Instead of wondering why they aren’t thriving on the level playing field, imagine how the field can be changed to allow everyone to thrive.
COMPASSION FATIGUE
The patriarchy (ugh) not only affects us directly, but also causes indirect harm to us as we care for others. When we experience stress on behalf of others, we may dismiss it as inconsequential or “irrational” and ignore it. Givers may spend years attending to the needs of others, while dismissing their own stress generated in response to witnessing those needs. The result is uncountable incomplete stress response cycles accumulating in our bodies. This accumulation leads to “compassion fatigue,” and it’s a primary cause of burnout among givers, including those who work in helping professions (many of which are dominated by women—teaching, social work, healthcare, etc). Signs of compassion fatigue include21
? checking out, emotionally—faking empathy when you know you’re supposed to feel it, because you can’t feel the real thing anymore;
? minimizing or dismissing suffering that isn’t the most extreme—“It’s not slavery/genocide/child rape/nuclear war, so quit complaining”;
? feeling helpless, hopeless, or powerless, while also feeling personally responsible for doing more; and
? staying in a bad situation, whether a workplace or a relationship, out of a sense of grandiosity—“If I don’t do it, no one will.”
People who live through traumatic experiences are called survivors.
People who love and support people who live through traumatic experiences are co-survivors. They need all the support and care that a survivor needs. If they don’t get it, they run the risk of burning out, dropping out, and tuning out. If we want to change the world, we need change agents to know how to receive care.
Fortunately the skills you’ll learn in the last section of this book—social connection, rest, and befriending your inner critic—are evidence-based strategies for recovering from and preventing compassion fatigue.22
It would be great if the world could maybe stop telling us how broken and crazy we are, but we don’t have to wait for the world to change in order to stop feeling this way. We can start right now. It’s what the rest of this book is about.
The first step is knowing the game is rigged—seeing the way the rules are set up not just to treat some people unequally, but also to blind us to the unfairness of the rules.
The next steps are to apply the first three chapters of the book: (1) Complete the cycle, to deal with the stress itself. (2) Use planful problem-solving and positive reappraisal, to keep your Monitor satisfied. And (3) engage with your Something Larger, which will heal Human Giver Syndrome.
1. Complete the Cycle: Feels About the Patriarchy