Beyond Self-Care: How To Love Your Toddler Self
Photo by Maria Pashkova
Sometimes, you are just like a toddler. Wait, you protest. I am 23/31/40 years old! I am mature! I pay bills and floss my teeth and may even have to wrangle actual toddlers in the middle of their tantrums!
Maybe so. But still, sometimes, you are just like a toddler. You are like a toddler because you cannot function well if your needs are unmet. And if you are a post-pandemic American woman, some of your most important social and personal needs are likely unmet.
Major physical and justice needs may jump immediately to mind, especially for those living below the poverty line. Huge swathes of the American population remain unable to access adequate food, shelter, and education. Potential solutions remain mired in heated debate, while ground support struggles to meet the basic needs of the less privileged in our society.
But even for those above the poverty line, all is not well. You may have noticed, for example, that in spite of our increased levels of connection via the internet and social media, recent research has suggested that fewer and fewer Americans have enough actual in-real-life people with whom we share the day-to-day or can call on for personal support. In fact, although we live in a globally-oriented context, we live increasingly in a state of social isolation.
As a result, we have lost our societal ability to attend to the mental and physical needs that lead to healthy adult living. Instead, Americans are getting lonelier and lonelier and our life-expectancy is dropping. While our social, emotional, and physical needs remain very real, we receive very little real help in meeting them.
This is why the concept of “self-care,” when spun by marketing firms, is such attractive click-bait, as in: Are you hurting deeply from a lack of care? Try a bubble-bath, followed by our latest skincare product! Or for the men out there—try this new craft beer! We’d rather believe in fancy lotions and brews (even though these can be good things in themselves) than consider that we feel alone and uncared-for.
No, although an occasional soak in the tub or a new purchase can definitely be refreshing, these things on their own will not solve your bone-weariness or keep you from awakening in the morning feeling sorrowful and angry. Even a night out with friends, though wonderful, is not enough if it is not part of a considered and committed pattern. It is deep restoration that we truly need, something beyond the lovely but inadequate self-care about which we often read.
But what does this mean? One easy way to understand our needs is through psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs, which reminds us that in order to thrive in our professional and personal lives—to “self-actualize”—we must attend to certain basic needs first.
Maslow’s Hierarchy is illustrated as a pyramid, with our various needs resting upon each other in ascending order of importance, with actual physical needs forming the widest part of the base:
Does this remind you of anything, perhaps having to do with toddlers?
Most people who have experience caring for children know that when a toddler is cranky, the first thing to do is to go down what my friends and I call the “toddler checklist:” Is he hungry? Is he cold or hot? Is she sick? Is she tired? Is she lonely? Is he overstimulated or overwhelmed? In order to thrive, these needs must be met before a child can exercise self-control, learn well, or think of others.
Sounds a lot like what a grown-up needs, too, doesn’t it? Of course, adults do have the ability to push through personal discomfort, distress, and even trauma when needed, and this self-denial is sometimes appropriate. However, when we consistently send e-mails instead of sleeping, do punishing workouts instead of eating enough, scroll on our phones instead of meeting real friends, and simply push through as a matter of course, our neglect of ourselves will eventually affect our healthy functioning. In this way, adults like you and I are just like toddlers.
So if you are struggling with stress, screen addiction, heartache, or malaise, I urge you to consider yourself as you would your favorite sweet little person, and ask yourself frequently:
Am I cold or hot?
Am I lonely?
Am I overstimulated?
Am I tired?
Am I hungry or thirsty?
Am I sick or in pain?
And then address the issue as soon as possible, putting it before all but the most urgent responsibilities. That is true maturity.
You may be surprised by how often you are cold or hungry or just uncomfortable from your socks or waistband without realizing it. Yet such things are often easily fixed (put on a sweater, change into sandals, eat an apple)!
But some fixes are harder. Managing loneliness, pain or sickness, and overwhelm takes commitment and courage. If you really believe in the work you are doing and value yourself as a person, however, you need to take your toddler needs seriously and love on your toddler self. You have a real responsibility to yourself and those you love to set limits that protect and promote your sleep, health, and laughter.
So don’t ignore your own most basic needs. You may think you are exercising very grown-up self-control when you push through without taking care of yourself, but that is actually self-punishment, not self-discipline. Search yourself instead for the more mature self-discipline of accepting your own needs and reaching out for help if you find you can’t meet some of them on your own.
Only then will you become the thriving and capable woman that you deserve to be.
