The Scramble
Believing we are the only ones who can clean up the messes made by others might not always be in our, and our kids’, best interests.
I imagine we all have someone in our lives who makes and leaves messes for other people to clean up. I’m not just talking about our kids and their dinner plates, I’m talking about people—grown-ups—who don’t ever see the behind-the-scenes work we put in to keep life running smoothly despite their best, and totally subconscious efforts to fuck it up. These are the kind of people who, if my experience is universal enough to assume, live their lives in such a way to create chaos, stress, and total frustration for everyone else around them, perhaps without even knowing it. They might ignore important details, leaving many stones unturned. They say they’ve done things they haven’t or that they’re going to do things they won’t. They might take 15 steps to make something 10-times harder than it needs to be and then suggest that you were the one who made it difficult for everyone else. They turn things that should’ve been obvious no-brainers into an all-out struggle. They’re the hurricane that decimates a tiny town and doesn’t even have the capacity to look back and see what kind of destruction they’ve caused, or who’s going to clean up after their disaster. And the unseen players are the mess-cleaners, the ones who make accommodations, do all the hustling, supporting, and finagling to make it all work in real life, while the mess-maker moves around without a clue.
In my life, I call this “The Scramble.” It’s the term I use to describe what happens when I find myself suddenly scrambling to fix things for my kids. I hate to say it, but I have a ton of examples, times where the kids have needed things from the grown-ups in their lives, but because there’s so much potential for conflict between said grown-ups, I have to just take care of things myself. Sometimes this is rewarding; sometimes I rally to the call of whatever they need and make it happen. But most of the time it is hectic, last-minute, time-consuming, energy-draining, and generally the result of something their other parent has or has not done. Important documents not filed, supplies not bought, sicknesses not tended to, panicked texts about changes that need to be made or feelings that need to be felt. Being the parent who is willing to hear and meet our kids’ needs often means we are the ones with the fuller, messier plates.
I have considered letting the “Gift of Failure” happen for my children. It is not lost on me that sometimes we have to let the chips fall where they may; let our kids see the consequences of someone else’s faults play out. Much as I’d like to, I understand that I can’t protect my children from every misfortune, no matter how hard I try. It sucks to see our kids suffer, to see them lose something they wanted, to have things not work out, to feel like shit. So, understandably, we want to do everything in our power to make life a little bit easier for them, to prevent bad things from happening to them. And I recognize that sometimes that’s not only impossible, but it’s also not in their best interest.
Over the years I’ve learned a few things about The Scramble, ways to determine whether it’s a) worth it, and b) the right thing to do. Because sometimes we have learned to bend, to be flexible, to make shit work, to keep quiet and to overcompensate for the mess-makers because we think that’s easier than letting things play out the way they could. But sometimes we’re acting out of habit, or a false sense of self-importance (yes, that’s real), instead of letting life just happen. We’re not helping our kids, we’re saving them. And sometimes they might not necessarily need to be saved.
Wondering whether you are a scrambler/rescuer/fixer? Know that you are but you’re ready to go into recovery? Here are some helpful backstops so you know when to hold ‘em:
1. Notice the physical sensations. When you click into savior mode, there will be an obvious physical experience in your body. You may feel rushed, irritable, racy inside, or taught like a string. Whatever it is, notice it. Every time you’re about to launch to clean up someone else’s mess, ask yourself what you’re feeling first. This way, when the impulse to jump in and fix strikes you, you’ll know you’re about to do it. And knowing really is half the battle.
2. Slow down. Often times there’s a perceived urgency when someone else has left you to fix their disaster. You not only want to clean it up, you want to clean it up FAST. But when we’re in flight we are not thinking logically. So many times I have jumped to fix something only to see hours later that I made things so much harder for myself because I wasn’t thinking with my whole brain. If you feel like you’re panicking, you probably are so take a few breaths, walk away from the scene of the crime, and gather yourself to be able to respond to the crisis if there really is one.
3. Look ahead. Think the situation through all the way to its end, if you can. Is there something genuinely bad that will happen if I don’t step in? Or can I let things play out a little bit before I try to rescue everyone? Sometimes I am so upset—mad at the mess-maker, sad for my kids, pissed at myself—that I want to fix things before I’ve even assessed the potential damages. Maybe things won’t turn out as bad as I imagine if I check my crystal ball first.
4. Remember: No-Self. In Buddhism, the concept of No-Self is central to the path towards enlightenment. The idea, and I paraphrase, is that there’s no actual, real self to cling to in this life (look for The Self yourself—you won’t find it anywhere). This isn’t meant to be Nihilistic; it’s meant to ease the suffering of having to tighten down around our own importance. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves in these situations, “Is it true that I AM the only one who can solve or fix this problem?” We have a lot of beliefs about who we are and what we’re supposed to be and questioning that can set us free from patterns that keep our whole family captive.
5. Ask yourself “what’s the first, most obvious place I’m needed?” My bf and I went to a small North Carolina town after Hurricane Helene to do a day of clean up. In my life I’ve never seen such devastation and I kept feeling a huge sense of overwhelm that led to a feeling of impotence and powerlessness, no matter what work we did. It felt like we were just chipping away at something that was already gone, until we stopped for a break where we talked to a woman who’d lived there her whole life. She mentioned there was a restaurant that had filled with river mud, and she reckoned they needed help. When we got there it was so obvious that this was the job we were supposed to be doing. I went from feeling inept to feeling useful. I didn’t save the whole town, but I made a dent in something important. Sometimes we have to look at our kids’ problems and see if there really is a worthwhile job for us to do and then put ourselves to doing it without having to fix everything all at once.
If you’re a self-prescribed “Cleaner” it may be hard to start shifting this pattern. I have a client who cancels our appointments when she feels like her kids “need” her, whether they’re home with a cold or just not being their best selves. Regardless of the reason, her pattern is to bail on herself in order to bail her kids out of their own discomfort. Sometimes we need to do that. Sometimes our kids need us more than they need to learn life’s bitter lessons. Sometimes it’s up to us to mitigate the suffering caused by someone else’s mistakes. But if we’re going to do that, let’s do it slowly, consciously, and with the intent to support ourselves and our kids, rather than just fix shit when someone didn’t notice they were making a mess in the first place.
