Parental Health & Human Giver Syndrome

Human giver syndrome is gaining more traction in conversation, particularly in 2022 as we are seeing & hearing more about parental burnout.

Dr. Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski D.M.A., the authors of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle discuss the characteristics and the (very) often unseen / overlooked / undervalued workload of human givers, those who “have a moral obligation / duty to give their full humanity”* to others without asking for anything in return.

“They have a duty. To give everything they have- their time, their attention, their patience, their love, their rest, their bodies, their hopes and dreams, their very lives sometimes, sacrificed on the altar of other humans' comfort and convenience.”*

Who does this sound like to you?

For the sake of Parent Suitcase’s focus, I will talk about the unsung work of parents as “human givers”. These are individuals that tend to the physical and emotional needs of others and often overlook / neglect their own needs. Over the past (almost) 3 years now, parents have been self-sacrificing to bridge  the gaps of frequent school cancellations, daycare closures, layoffs with mounting workloads, and so forth. We are the glue that holds it all together, and there is only so much glue in the bottle before it runs out.

As mentioned in Episode 3, Human Giver Syndrome from Feminist Survival Project 2020 Podcast, “this is why so many of the typical aphorisms around self care do not help a human giver, like, “you can't pour from an empty cup.”… Telling a human giver to practice self-care can prick like an insult- it’s not that they don’t WANT the self-care time, it’s simply that they don’t have it or don’t have the physical / mental bandwidth to perform it. Human givers are altruistically generous of their time, personal energy, and their undivided attention. This type of exhaustive dedication frequently comes at a cost.

Human givers feel an obligation to help others heal, and there is this unspoken external cultural pressure that women are the ones that should be providing the healing. We should be generous, benevolent, calm, omnipresent, always the “yes” person. We feel obligated and dutiful all while we are fraying at the seams.

So what’s the flip side of the coin? Those on the receiving end of the giving. A few considerations to peel back:

  1. Are they aware of this resource-imbalanced relationship?

  2. Is entitlement a part of the equation? A lack of personal boundaries? A combination?

  3. Who else can participate?

  4. Who’s looking out for you? At the core, is this a household issue, a work issue, a parenting issue?

  5. How can you disentangle yourself from this? What is at the core of this obligation? (This may be a good question to explore with a mental health professional, if and when necessary).

  6. What signals is your body giving you? Are you in a partnership with a fellow giver? Or are you in a partnership with a receiver? Someone else’s cup is being filled right now; this particular self-exploration can be particularly enlightening if you haven’t previously considered that one person is solely benefiting and the other (the giver) is running on fumes.

  7. What brings you joy? What would it take for you to experience that on a more regular basis?

  8. Rest is often not celebrated and is seen as a futile action. We have to change our relationship as a society with rest and welcome it as a widely accepted and necessary activity.

    The droning on of hustle culture is pervasive and a massive concern in the United States. Allow me to briefly digress here to make a point:

“A poll conducted around the globe in 11 countries (Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and the United States) via Microsoft WorkLab surveyed 20,000 people and “analyzed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, along with LinkedIn labor trends and Glint People Science findings” revealed some startling but not-so-surprising results: nearly 50% of employees and 53% of managers stated they were burned out at work.”

What is their proposed solution?

  1. End productivity paranoia

  2. Embrace the fact that people come in for each other (referring to social connectedness)

  3. Re-recruit your employees- energize and inspire the employees you already have! The topic of occupational burnout will definitely be covered on this blog in the future.

We know that occupational burnout is a public health concern and there certainly is some overlap: lack of resources, particularly coupled with increased demands on the person experiencing burnout. We also know that although this is a societal issue and we are not the only ones “responsible” for preventing or treating our own burnout, we can recalibrate some things within our own control to be more self-protective.

Circling back to human giver syndrome….

What can we do to counteract the impact and effects of human giver syndrome if we, as parents, are seeing ourselves in these descriptions? We can walk through the previous 8 considerations above. We can create more protective personal boundaries around our own physical energy reserves, personal time, and mental bandwidth.

I wanted to end with a quote from Amelia Nagoski: “Because the cure for Burnout is not self care. It's all of us taking care of each other.”

Take good care (of one another),

-Shelley @ParentSuitcase

Join the community at @parentsuitcase as we explore some tough-to-talk-about topics in parental health. Follow my blog at parentsuitcase.com

#humangiversyndrome #humangiver #caregiver #caregiving #caregivers #parentalburnout #burnout

Source: Episode 3, Human Giver Syndrome from Feminist Survival Project 2020.

Disclaimer: The information on Parent Suitcase’s platform is not intended or implied to be a substitute for personal professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All platform content including text, graphics, images, and information is for general information purposes only & does not replace clinical consultation with your own doctor/mental health professional.

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