I don't answer to supermom.

How we got to where we are today

There's often a caregiver behind that wheelchair, you know.

In our family’s case, as the primary parent-caregiver to an increasing number of higher-needs children, I was the one being told, “Just trust God!” to supply our family's needs.

From afar:

Keep believing! We admire your faith!

If God didn't come through for us, maybe we weren't trusting him enough. Or not trying hard enough. Or maybe we were asking God for the wrong things.

If all else failed, we weren't suffering silently enough (because talking too much about our struggles would make God look bad and the church feel guilty).

Put a cheerful face on it! Work and believe harder! Pray and wait for God to save you! That will inspire us and make us feel good!

Our suffering wasn't their responsibility; that part was made clear.

The failure certainly wasn't God’s.

Why wasn't Joe helping?

I wasn't allowed to do more than ask my husband to help me (with my work that I took on), but not too often, because that's nagging and learned helplessness. And I must stay sweet and thankful for any little thing he does to help, even when it's done begrudgingly. If I don't, he might sulk and whine and refuse to help at all. I felt punished for either choice—asking or not asking.

What about getting the other children to help?

Despite the perpetual intense needs, I tried increasingly hard to give my non-disabled children lives of their own, especially after hearing critical remarks from church people, like, “I would never let my older kids raise my younger kids.” But not before real damage was done to the siblings with the weakest boundaries, especially my oldest daughter.

Why not access government aid?

In my extremist religious circles, social workers, public schools and other government programs were all suspect. “Handing our children over to the state” was a shameful failure and capitulation to laziness that opened us all up to danger.

In short, I was being controlled by fear and shame.

My rehearsed stock answer when church people asked how I was doing? With a bright, tight smile, “I’m appropriating the grace of God!!!”

I compared myself to other disability moms who managed to make healthy tube feedings from scratch, run through all the therapies of all their children daily, and tutor their special needs children to learn to read, all while running their large family households and even homeschooling.

“Why am I failing? What's wrong with me?”

As it turns out, in the real world, with no miracles or other magical thinking involved, we are 100% responsible to see that the needs of our children are met, one way or another.

Nobody who cheered us on while we added child after child (in boundless faith that God would keep his promise to provide) was there to help us figure out their care.

“Pretty sure those folks are making smart decisions for their retirement.” ~Joe Musser

Well, Susanna, we expected you to use your common sense!

Oh, you mean that thing you taught me not to trust in?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6 (and many other Bible passages I can quote without looking them up)

Who will get the glory for Susanna using her common sense? Susanna will! But if we take on what only God could accomplish, he will do miracles! Enable us to walk on water! Stretch our meager loaves and fishes to feed five thousand people! Everyone will get to see what God can do, and he will get all the glory!

I really believed it all, and I put my beliefs to an extreme test down where the rubber meets the road.

Nobody came to save us.

Despite having mountainous quantities of faith, instead of supermom feats plus divine miracles, we ended up with what you might expect would happen when you add an impossible number of needy kids to two parents with undiagnosed neurodivergence and unaddressed mental illness. It was like moving to a third world country but still living surrounded by people with first world expectations. Unmet needs, trauma compounded by more trauma, burnout, breakdown.

I was taught to suffer well.

The thing is, it wasn't just me who was suffering. Is there any greater suffering for an inherently loving mother than watching harm come to her children while feeling helpless to stop it?

We're no longer struggling like we were.

Nothing in our family’s life changed for the better until I stopped listening to religious extremists and waiting for God to come and save us.

Nothing changed for the better until I took my responsibility in my hands and started making the needed changes.

My children didn't need a weak, suffering mom who was in denial of reality.

We stopped trying to be people we aren't and to fit into others’ ideas for us.

I slowly relinquished my death grip on perfectionism. Our house and property are continuously in a state my past self would have found unacceptable. It's still not my favorite thing, but I have stopped taking everything so damn seriously.

I only allow people close to us who come without a trace of judgment, and I can smell that shit from miles away; we don't want it here anymore.

I have backbone and boundaries now, and I delegate wherever possible.

I'm very aware of my life energy and what drains or refills it. I protect my mental, emotional, and physical health at all costs. I tell my family when my brain is low on power by the evening. “I got home from the girls’ appointment with my brain at 4%, and it's down to 1%. I'm done saying things to people until tomorrow.”

Turns out that the government people and programs I was taught to fear and despise are the ones making it possible for our family's needs to be met. We’re particularly grateful for our girls’ school teachers and aides, and for their county supports coordinator, who care about us and care about doing a good job.

For Joe and me, balancing the needs in our life is like riding bareback on an untrained pony with a mind of its own with no prior riding lessons. We take turns falling off one side, then the other, and we keep helping each other scramble back up. It's as ridiculous as it sounds, and we laugh at ourselves a lot. We couldn't do what we do without being good friends and having a sense of humor.

So if you try calling me supermom or saying I’m amazing, I'll chuckle to myself and change the subject.

We don’t have to be special. We can just be humans.

Verity, aka Doodle Noodle Kit-and-Caboodle

Josie, aka Jojo

Katie, aka Kit-Kat