Navy Community, Navy Spouse and Family Resources - Navy Times

Can’t ask for help? Find a ‘Mother Hen’

Military spouses have a reputation for helping others — call it our version of the military “we take care of our own” philosophy. But we’re among the worst when it comes to asking for help for ourselves.

This inability to ask for help when we need it can be the result of a lot of different factors:

•We figure everyone is already dealing with enormous challenges.

•We don’t recognize when we’re at the end of our rope.

•We know others who whine, complain and demand help yet don’t take advantage of the resources available to them — and we don’t want to sound like that.

•We’ve been taught to be proud and to never take “handouts.”

•We don’t know how to ask for help, even when others offer.

In her new book “Life After Deployment: Military Families Share Reunion Stories and Advice,” Marine spouse Karen Pavlicin presents many great ideas. One favorite is the “Mother Hen” method of getting help.

When you know you need help, and people have offered the general comment “let me know what I can do,” find yourself a Mother Hen.

“Think of a good friend, neighbor or family member who has asked how they can help,” Pavlicin said. “Choose someone who is organized. Ask them to be your Mother Hen.”

Your Mother Hen takes the list of tasks that you simply cannot accomplish and assigns them to people who have offered to help based on their skills, schedules and interests. Think of the possibilities. Not everyone loves to cook, but someone might be happy to pick up and deliver meals, or take on meal scheduling or running other errands.

“By using a Mother Hen, you have only one person to tell what you need,” she explained. “Your Mother Hen won’t mind asking others because it’s to help someone else — you. And the people your Mother Hen asks will only say yes if they really want to. They won’t feel bad telling Mother Hen no.”

When Army spouse Linda Beougher went through a challenging medical procedure, her sister-in-law Lee stepped in to help.

“You could call Lee ‘Mother Hen Extraordinaire,’” Beougher said. “And then you could say I also had other ‘chicks’ step up to help out. My neighbor Teresa took charge of meal coordination in our neighborhood; my friend Laura sent housecleaning help.”

Friends and neighbors stepped in to drive her to doctors’ appointments and took her girls for play dates and to their regular activities to give them some sense of normalcy at a trying time.

Why should people step in to help? As Pavlicin noted, what goes around comes around. In this military life, we “pay it forward.” You’ll have an opportunity to help someone else in need in the future.

Beougher recently had the opportunity to help with another military family dealing with a medical crisis; she stepped in and helped them with scheduling. Having been on the receiving end in the past, she had a good idea of what needed to be done. Mother Hen rides again.

--

Kathie Hightower and Holly Scherer are military spouses who have written articles and presented workshops based on their research and experience for over 10 years. They are the authors of “Help! I’m a Military Spouse — I Want a Life Too!” Send your questions and suggestions to marriedtomilitary@militarytimes.com.