Here's the thing about asking for help: the ask itself is the labor. And I learned that the hard way during the two worst weeks of my life.

My youngest came eight weeks early. I'd just had a C-section. We were running back and forth to the NICU, trying to care for a two-year-old at home, healing from surgery, and keeping an entire life running on fumes. People kept asking, "What can we do?" And we kept saying, "We're fine." Not because we were fine. Because figuring out what to ask for was just as much work as doing it ourselves.

And then a woman showed up at my door without warning, without asking, and handed me a gift I'll never forget. And it was the most incredibly simple but caring one imaginable.

This episode is also about what happens when I stop talking — which, if you know me, is significantly more terrifying than anything that comes out of my mouth.

I talk about productive yelling, why silence in our house is a five-alarm situation, and the very Italian way my in-laws communicate.

And in this week's Small Talk, Alison tackles a question from Darnell in Atlanta.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Like, if I'm yelling or I'm being loud, there's communication happening.

We can come to an agreement. If I'm quiet, you are so super fucked.

I'm not mad at dad. I'm not. He literally has nothing to do with this

at all. And she was like, but you're yelling at him. And I was like,

no, I'm yelling in his general direction. This is productive.

Like, I might as well have just chugged rocket fuel when one of my

kids tells me that something is annoying. Because, man, I'm gonna do it 10,000 times

now. All right, here we go.

I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record, because that feels right. Okay, I'm pressing record.

Boop. Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren Howard.

Welcome to Different Not Broken, which is our

podcast on exactly that. That there are a lot of people in this world walking

around feeling broken. And the reality is you're just different, and that's fine.

Now, I want to be very clear about something. My husband has an excellent life

that I facilitate for him in so many different way.

He gets to be a full time househusband, which he loves. He gets to be

a full time dad, which he also loves. For whatever reason, he really likes

these kids, probably because they act just like him, which is like my

nightmare. But it's fine. But he likes both of those things. I

recognize and acknowledge that I am not a picnic at all.

That I am a neurotic mess, like, 95% of

the time. But there are trade offs in life and you're. You're

super awesome setup where you get to be a full time

house husband with a full time nanny might mean that

you get to deal with your wife, who's not a picnic. And I think that's

okay. He also is my I'm

angry at the world receptacle. We've reached a point in our marriage, and I think

this is probably just like the fact that our marriage is a high

school sophomore. Now we've reached the point in the marriage that we have recognized

that we can be yelling, but not yelling at each

other. Like, he's Italian, he's loud, he

doesn't have a volume. That is not yelling

so much so that, like, he and his mother yell at each other

constantly. And they have no idea. They think they're just having a

conversation. And I'm like, you guys are screaming at each other. You're basically

insulting each other's intelligence constantly, over and

over, and you don't understand why everybody around you is like, are they

okay? That is Just the way they communicate it is the way they talk to

each other. I finally recognize that. To me, it's wild

that they can have these conversations where they're going after

each other for 30 straight minutes about really important things

like mulch. And if you think that's an exaggeration, it's

not. But they will go after each other. And it

brings the whole energy up of the room up to frenetic. Especially if

you're, like, trying to have a meal and you're like, why does my digestion feel

all weird? And maybe it's because there are two people next to me yelling at

each other. And then they get done with it, and they're like, all right, you

want to go get pizza? And you're like, you just yelled at each other for

45 straight minutes, and you just. You want to go

snag dinner now? Cool. Anyway, it's taken me a long time to realize

that's just how they communicate, and that's the only way they hear each other. I

just don't get involved with it. But anyway, the point is that my husband and

I have now kind of just like, reached a point in our relationship where

we can yell and know we're not yelling at each other. And I'm

not really a yeller for the most part. Like,

you're in way bigger trouble if I'm quiet. Like, if I'm

yelling or I'm being loud, which, again, doesn't happen that often, or I'm

talking, even if I'm, like, edgy about it, you're fine.

There's communication happening. We can come to an agreement. We're gonna find

a compromise. If I'm quiet. You are so super,

like, something nuclear is about to happen, and I am not even going to

apologize for it. Years and years ago, when I

was working at a company that built software, we had a really

good development team who could very

easily develop the end goal, big solution,

but not the things that facilitate that thing actually happening.

So they would build the platform that was amazing and super functional,

and then you'd be like, okay, how do people actually access it? And they'd be

like, that's a good question. And so one time,

after many, many of these conversations, they sold the

solution to someone. And as the person who was responsible for

deploying it in this group's environment, I was trying to write

the implementation plan, and I went, you know what? I'm realizing that

I have absolutely no idea how this part talks

to this part and what we need to do to actually Build that out.

Do we need developers involved? So I went over to our CTO and I was

like, hey, can you explain to me how this piece works? Because we're supposed

to launch this in 30 days. And I have no idea. Like, there's a whole

bunch of pre work we have to do. I have no idea how to do

that. And there wasn't a lot that I didn't know how to do on the

system. And he just looks at me and he's like, oh, we don't have a

way to do that. And I was like, okay, but we just sold $120,000

contract to do that. And he was like, yeah, we probably have to build

it. And I was like, you say that. Is that like a one week

process or like a six month process? And he was like, I mean,

it's probably a several month process. And I was like,

you do know that we just sold a go live

of six weeks from today with this solution. And

he was like, yeah, that sounds like a problem. I went

silent because nobody was gonna give them this information. It was on

me to tell them that our sales team sold something that we can't

do. And our development team didn't know that we actually needed to do it.

Even though they built the thing, they didn't know that anybody needed to use it.

And usually if I was in the office, because I wasn't in the office that

often, somebody was at my desk, like every five minutes. It was constant.

And so I almost got nothing done in the office because there was just constantly

people at my desk. And so I noticed after like 45

minutes or an hour that nobody had come by my desk. And I also had

gotten very little done. I was just like, sitting there, like, deep breathing. The person

who I am, L2, because she was L1, came over to

my desk eventually, and she's still one of my very best friends. And she was

like, they're all in the conference room talking because they think you're gonna go nuclear.

And I was like, that is a safe assumption at this point because this

is a stupid decision that is now on me to fix. And she was like,

yeah, but it's fun to watch. And the conference room was like, glassed in. So

she was like, just come sit at my desk and watch. And I was like,

all right. So we just went and sat at her desk, and we didn't have

popcorn, but we should have had popcorn. So

anyway, if I'm quiet, you're in trouble. And the people who

know me know you're in trouble. So

if I'm yelling about something, it usually means

that I'm like, trying to get to the solution about it. And so

my very sweet husband, who is sweet in his own

way, yesterday got so many earfuls

and my 7 year old came up to me and was like,

mom, why are you mad at dad? And I was like, I'm not mad

at dad. I'm not. He literally has nothing to do with this at all. And

she was like, but you're yelling at it. I was like, no, I'm yelling in

his general direction. This is productive

yelling. I was like, it is almost no different than me yelling at the

wall. He is just there to receive and

occasionally jump in and say, what if we. Or could we try? And then it

gives me something new to yell about. And then I get all my yells out

and I say, I can't do this anymore. I'm so angry about all this and

how could this happen? And all these people. And then I walk away and I

go get my shit done because I've yelled at the

receptacle of all of my ire. And he doesn't take it

personally. And he has also learned not to help too much

because then it does become yelling at him then, even though he is very

much trying to help and I so love that he so wants

to help. Then it becomes, oh, you think in all of my

five years of stressing about this thing that I didn't consider that

then I just didn't think of that thing that is right in front of my

face, really. So he's just learned to just be like, I

don't need to help. I just need to cheerlead. I just need to be like,

y' all figure it out, babe. So my children are getting a lesson in

marital communication, which maybe is not what

is generally recommended, but it works for us. And it's the same thing that he

does. Usually he comes in to yell about the contractor who's working on our house

and be like, I told him. And then he said, and now it's

been. Whereas he usually just like

agrees with me and pats me on the head. I kind of do that

when we're on the same page, but I'm also there with a lighter and matches

like, you wanna. You wanna burn it down? Do you wanna. Do you wanna. Do

you want me to just light it on fire? Do you just want me jump?

Like, I won't actually use a lighter in matches, but I really, I can be

mean in writing. Do you want me to do that. Because I will do that.

Do you want me to handle them? I will handle them. But anyway, this poor

man yesterday got so many tongue lashings that

had nothing to do with him. And thankfully he fully understands that and just

knows that it is the price of doing business with having a

nice car and dealing with me on the regular. Just, there are many,

many perks to it. That's like the worst part of it. And he just

deals with it very well.

My nine year old's greatest claim to fame. My nine year old is she comes

up to my chin. She's giant. I'm small, but she's a giant.

And she's also like 50 pounds. Like

she's probably four and a half feet

ish and she's 50 pounds. She is

a string bean. My youngest says that. My youngest is

a potato and my oldest is a french fry. She definitely got

my husband's genetics as far as her entire

setup is concerned. But my youngest is like 8

inches shorter than her sister and she's 2 pounds lighter. When

they were like probably 2 and 4,

I was like, what do you do when the universe gives you a child in

the 80th percentile for height and at the 20th percentile for height?

I dress them up like Mario and Luigi because what else do you do? So

they used to dress up like Mario and Luigi all the time. My oldest loves

Olive Garden and when she's going through a growth spurt, like she

will eat drywall, she just like shovels things into her

mouth. There is not an ounce of extra

body fat percentage on her at all whatsoever. And so we took

her to Olive Garden one day because during one of her Olive Garden kicks

and she got the adult lasagna, let them eat chicken nuggets because

otherwise they turn out to be hella expensive. These kids go and order like

$20 plates in restaurants and I'm like, why just get

the chicken nuggets. Anyway, so she ordered this whole plate of lasagna, which is.

I don't know if anybody's seen Olive Garden lasagna, but it literally is like

an 8 inch round bowl filled with

lasagna. It is more than three

adults should eat. She ate the whole thing herself.

The server came over and asked her if she needed a box and she was

like, no, I'm done. She. And she looks down and she's like,

did you eat that whole thing? She was like, yeah. She

was like, where did you put it? I don't know. But anyway,

she has the metabolism of

something with a very fast metabolism. She's the opposite of Garfield

in most ways, except for the lasagna. I actually don't really like

lasagna at all. It's something my husband's mother makes all the time, and her

lasagna is very good, but it's just not a food that I like. Don't be

offended. Lasagna. But a lasagna

saved me from what was only

a certain meltdown and

gave me the tools that I needed to figure out how to

get through decision fatigue. And I had no

idea that this was coming. My youngest was eight weeks early. My oldest was

six weeks early. I undercooked them, which is why there is not a third child.

They keep coming out al dente. So when my oldest was eight weeks early,

we were going back and forth to the nicu, like basically

constantly. And the NICU is not close to where we live. It's

30 minutes away at best, without

traffic. And we were going back and forth multiple times

a day. I had just had a C section. I couldn't drive, so I either

had to take an Uber or I had to have my husband drive me. And

we had a two year old at home. It was way more chaotic the second

time. Like, you think if you've been through it the first time, you're like, the

second time I know how to handle this. Well, the second time we had a

kid who couldn't come with us to the NICU all the time. And so we're

basically like dividing and conquering all the time because what else do you do? And

so I was getting up there every day, going and spending most

of the day with her coming back again. I

just had major surgery. Anybody who tells you a C section, it's not major surgery

is lying. Bite me. Major, major surgery. I was

uncomfortable. I was in pain all the time. She was eight weeks early,

so that was a thing. And even at that age,

she was stubborn. Just the sheer amount of things

that were on our plate was insane. And we are very

fortunate that we have family and friends and a whole bunch of people who

are reaching out saying, what can we do? What can we do? Can we bring

you something? What can we do? And we wouldn't take them up on any of

it. And so we were figuring out food and we were

doing our laundry and we were running back and forth between two

kids and we were dealing with doctors and I

was doing my follow ups and I was healing and recovering

from surgery. And we have 7,000 different things going

on and lots of things that people could have helped us with,

and that we probably would have happily accepted help with. But

delegating is often as difficult as doing it yourself.

Or figuring out where you need to delegate is often as bad as doing

it yourself when you're in that, like, overload. And so

you just go without clean clothes, or

you wear the musty clothes from the dryer that sat in the washer for

too long because you have to have something to wear, the executive

function to get it all done, like, it's gone. There's not enough bandwidth to

do all of this. And it wasn't because we didn't have people

to do the things. Like, we had people who would have shown up and done

the laundry had we asked them to do the laundry. But making the list

that emotional labor is still labor, it's still

work. And this is not a criticism of anybody around us. It's just how I

learned that, like, in those situations, that's not

the question to ask. And so we were probably two

weeks into this. I was on the verge of

some sort of meltdown. My 2 year old had a

virus, which not great when you have a

newborn, and we're trying to get our newborn out of the nicu,

and now we have a boogery feverish two year old in

our house who is not great at keeping her

hands and saliva to herself. And we had to figure out how to get

our baby home. We had to figure out when they were gonna let her come

home. We had to, like, basically quarantine the house in two places.

There were so many things that needed to be done. I couldn't even tell you

the first of them. It was absolute chaos. We had

a particularly bad day. I don't remember what

happened, but I just know it was a really bad day. The doorbell rings. We

weren't expecting anybody, but also, like, we could have forgotten literally

anything at that point. So I answer the call and it's this woman I

sort of recognized. Not well enough to know

her name. I just knew this was a person who was like,

did she live in our neighborhood? Is she somebody my mom knew? I didn't know

who this person was, but I kind of knew who she was. So I didn't

think I was about to get stabbed or anything, but always a chance. And

I open the door and she says, hey, Lauren. And I'm like,

hello, strange person who knows my name. How can I assist?

And she literally, without prompting, without waiting, hands

me a plate of lasagna, a loaf of bread,

a bag of salad, and says, that's only half the

Lasagna and half the bread. I figured you guys needed dinner. Let us know if

you need anything. By this time I had put together, she was a friend of

my mom's who also lived in our neighborhood. So I'm sure my mom had told

her, but she was just like, these people just had a baby. I

don't know if they like lasagna, but they probably need food, so I'm going to

bring them food. And so she showed up and all of a

sudden I went from I have no idea what the fuck I'm going to do

next to keep everything in order or even get it in some semblance

of order to oh my God, we have dinner. I don't have to think about

dinner. Dinner's done. I don't even care if I like this food. This

could be a big pile of anchovies. And I'd be like, get me a fork,

get me a fork. So we went in, we sat down, we all had

dinner. We didn't have to think about it. It didn't matter. I guess my

mom gave her my number because she texted me later and she was like, did

you guys have enough? Because I have more lasagna. And I'm like, we are so

good on the lasagna. Thank you so much. You are a delight. Thank you. You

have literally changed my day. It didn't matter that it wasn't

food that we would have picked. It didn't matter that

I didn't know if my 2 year old would eat lasagna. It didn't matter that

she didn't ask. Something was done and it

required literally no thought from me because I didn't even know

it was happening. It was probably like 7 o' clock at night at that point.

And it hadn't even occurred to me that somebody needed to be fed.

That's how crazy and chaotic and out of control things were.

She showed up, she didn't ask. She didn't expect

us to do the emotional labor of making a choice. She

didn't ask us what time she should be there. She didn't ask

anything. She took a risk. Worst case scenario, she was gonna leave cooked food

on the porch was a note. Worst case scenario, we weren't gonna eat it.

That's not that bad a scenario for that night

we were fed. That's was a big act in that she

like literally cooked all this food for us. Like, amazing. So nice of her.

But also it really showed me that people

are so kind and compassionate when they ask you what they can do

and nine times out of 10, they really mean it. And whatever the answer to

that is, they will do. It's not like a platitude that they're

throwing out. No. Usually when people are asking that they really want to help,

but the emotional labor of decision making,

of task building, of figuring out what

needs to be done and making sure that it's done right

when you're already overwhelmed. That's why there are a lot of people who are bad

at asking for help. I happen to be one of them a lot of the

time. But often it's not about not wanting help,

it's about how asking is the same amount of work. So if you want to

take something off somebody's plate, figure out what the thing is. Hey, I'm bringing

you dinner tonight. Do you want tacos or a

salad? Hey, do you have clean clothes? If not,

put them all in a bag, I will come grab it. Do you have any

detergent allergies? Hey, you've been running back and forth to

the NICU and you've probably have had a kid strapped to you for the last

three days. Do you want me to take your two year old for an hour

and you can go rest? Tangible, very direct

asks. And that was my situation. It's the same thing when you're caregiving,

when you're caregiving an adult, when you have just

had a medical procedure, if you got hurt, if you've been sick,

if you're going through a traumatic loss, if somebody's saying

no to you, when you genuinely want to help, make the ask

specific and you might actually get a yes from it. If you

come to me and say, this is actually like on a global scale, something that

I struggle with a lot. And my husband will come down to my office a

lot and say, hey, where do you want to go for dinner? And I'll be

like, nowhere. If I have to pick because I got other

stuff going on. I'm so busy and overwhelmed all the time

and I care so little about what the outcome of that decision is. But you

probably care a whole lot more than I do. So I'm not picking.

That's the thing that I have given away. Responsibility to

decisions are emotional labor, burns calories, burning

calories is. I wish it was more effective at burning calories, but

like, that's work. So if somebody's not asking you for help or

you want to be helpful, don't leave it open ended.

And if you're struggling with accepting help

because you know you're drowning but you can't Figure out

how to ask for help, or you can't figure out how to ask for it

correctly. Ask the person, what kind of stuff could you do?

Yes, I need help. I'm really struggling with figuring out what

thing you should help with because there's so much. What kind of stuff can you

do? They might be like, I'm great at laundry.

Can I do your dishes? Cool. Go do it. It's often

not about not wanting help. It's about the fact that the

ask is actually labor in and of itself, and that's

prohibitive. And now we'll go to

Allison, who has this week's small talk. We have a

small talk from Darnell from Atlanta, Georgia.

My teenage daughter told me last week, completely

deadpan, that I was the most predictable person she had ever

met. I laughed it off at the time, but honestly, it's been

sitting with me ever since. And here's the thing. I pride

myself on routine. I wake up at the same time, I make the same

breakfast. I take the same route to work. It keeps me calm,

and it keeps me functional. But now I'm wondering if my need for sameness is

embarrassing or limiting. Has anyone in your world ever

had to figure out how to be a little more spontaneous without

it completely derailing? You would love to hear how you'd

handle a teenager's verdict. Okay, I have

many thoughts. I'm processing through all of them all at the same

time. If it hasn't occurred to you that it's embarrassing, then it's not embarrassing.

Like, you're not embarrassed by it. Your teenager is embarrassed

by it, which they're allowed to be embarrassed by their parents. In

fact, they probably should be. Like, it puts some patina on them.

Like, your parents are supposed to be embarrassing. But

if you're saying that you do this thing because it's good for your mental health

and you're more productive when you do things this way

and you feel more in control of things when you do this way. And it's

not something you want to change, but you are thinking about changing it

for, like, acceptance from your teenager. Do

they like having food on the table? Do they like getting spending

money when you give it to them? Do they like

your predictability, your reliability? They probably actually really like

your predictability. Because kids, whether they fight against it or not, love

routine and love boundaries. And as they get a little bit

older, they rail against them because that's part of brain development. But kids love

routine, and it's why they get so excited when routine

gets broken, because it Feels new and novel and special. But

they're usually begging for routine. Whether they actually say that or not, they're

begging for somebody to put the limits on them. That's what their brains need.

And so I would wear it as a badge of honor if my. I'm just

getting to the point where my kids are embarrassed by me or annoyed by me.

And I did not realize that is like fuel. Like,

I might as well have just chugged rocket fuel when one of my

kids tells me that something is annoying. Because, man, I'm gonna do it 10,000

times now I'm gonna do it 11,000 times. I'm gonna

say things that they think are not funny because it makes me laugh that

they think they're not funny. And I don't really remember my parents being

that way. Also, like, if my parents were a little embarrassing, but in typical teenage

ways, like, I was never worried about bringing my parents places.

Like, the only time I was worried about bringing my parents places was when

I knew it was gonna be a place that my dad was gonna need a

lot of accommodation because he couldn't see well. And I

wasn't sure that I was going to be available to make sure that was

done for him like, that we were able to do that for him. And so

that was the only time that I cared if my parents came. Like, I didn't

have that relationship with them, but. And not that my kids, who either. They're still

too young for that. But embarrassing your kids is like a rite of passage. You

worked for this. You, like, tried hard for this.

And their embarrassment does not have to be yours.

Now, if you would like to change your routine

occasionally, not because of any outside influences, not because of somebody

telling you you should. But nobody can tell you why you should. If somebody says

you should and you ask why. And the answer is because that's what people do.

Maybe some people don't. That's not a real answer. I haven't heard a real answer

as to why you need to change up the way you do things, other than

it embarrasses my teenager. Good. Embarrass your

teenager. That's good parenting. Gently. Like

embarrassing. Just embarrass them for humor, for

mortification. Light mortification. You know what I'm trying to say? Take good care

of them, but also make them roll their eyes

when you come near. But, yeah, I just haven't heard a good reason why you

need to. My dad was a successful person

who had four kids and a whole career, and he

ate an egg sandwich for lunch for 20 years, every day,

every single day, it was just easier. He didn't care. He didn't need to change

it. People would say, don't you want something other than an egg sandwich? And he'd

say, no, I'm good with my egg sandwich. And he would eat an egg sandwich.

And then he would go home and he would go to the gas station and

he would buy bags of Funyuns and like slam

Funyuns on the way home, which is not. Don't do that. You can have routine,

but you don't need to. You don't need to eat bags of

fried onions. That's just the worst. So that part of the routine

was not good. But there's nothing that says that to be

an interesting person you can't have routine. There's nothing that says

there's anything wrong with it. If it's something you want to change, hey, there's a

thing I'd like to go to on Saturday, but that's going to be at the

same time as something that I want to do or something that I do every

week. And that's not a thing I have to do every week. But that's just

my routine. And it's going to be really dysregulating. If I

don't do that thing at that time, then that's something to try out.

I'm going to see how I can work, how I can manage my

anxiety, how I can prepare myself to do something different on this day,

at this time, because it's something I want to do because

I'm incentivized to do it. And

it will make me uncomfortable. But that's okay. Remember, we can do

anything scared. We shouldn't have to do things unsafe.

So what you're asking for is how is it? Is there a way

to approach things that I am scared of without completely

throwing off my whole existence? Absolutely. We can do anything

scared. But if it's something really important, like

an appointment that you have to make because it's for your health, you have

to keep this very specific schedule because otherwise

you're. You have tremendous anxiety and interferes with your ability to do your

job. And so we have to do very small, incremental things to try to

expose yourself to that. That's a very different beast than

I really just like going for a walk at 9am every Saturday morning. And

I think I would be upset if I did. So you can do

anything scared. If you want to change your routine, if there's a thing

in front of you that you prefer or you want to try, go for it.

But if it is just a matter of seeming cool in front of your teenager,

I assure you that as soon as you fix that, they will find

a new way, that you are decidedly

uncool and you will be on a constant hamster

wheel of trying to impress your teenager that

somehow ends with acid washed jeans. I don't know how, but

that's where that ends. Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you.

Mina,

Please don't fucking bring up mulch to me. Jesus Christ.