When you’re a first, there are always certain unspoken expectations.
You need to be a good role model for your siblings.
You need to step up and take care of them during difficult times.
You need to be useful to the household.
That expectation to be useful can quickly become part of your identity, something that you carry with you as you go through school, work, and romantic relationships.
And that’s a problem.
Sure, there is a sense of pride in being seen as capable and dependable. You feel needed and confident that you’re someone others can rely upon.
But when you become the woman who can organize it, fix it, fund it, explain it, remember the birthday (even when no one remembers your’s), make the reservation, and save the day, being needed can start to feel inseparable from being loved.
For women — especially Black women, being the capable one can become an expectation that follows us into different rooms. You become the person people trust to figure it out, take care of it, or step in when something needs to be done. And after a while, it can be hard not to wonder: Do people value me, or do they value everything I do for them?
You push yourself harder, you take on more responsibilities, you say, “Of course I can do that!”
And eventually you start asking yourself: “Would these people still know how to love me if I stopped being useful?”
These are feelings I still reckon with today.
Of course I know there’s a difference between being valued for who you are and being valued because you’re useful. But when you’ve grown to associate love with usefulness, it can be difficult to separate the two. It’s something that takes time to unlearn.
It starts with you facing that deep-seated fear that you’re only valuable when you’re serving.
It requires you to sit with the discomfort of letting someone else carry the weight, even when they’re struggling for a solution.
It means realizing that when you’re constantly saving the day, you’re preventing the people around you from growing, all while stretching yourself thinner and thinner.
None of this means that you should stop being supportive, responsible, or community-oriented. I’m as ambitious now as I’ve ever been, and I still try to be someone that others can rely upon.
But I’ve also learned to afford myself some grace.
I’ll let that text message sit unanswered for an hour. I’ll allow myself to tell someone “I can’t take that on right now” without having to offer a lengthy justification. When I walk into a room, I won’t immediately start looking for a problem to solve.
Most importantly, I allow myself to simply exist in a relationship without having to always be the one who saves the day.
Because I know that even though being needed may feel like love, the two are most definitely not the same thing. And while I always want to support the people that matter most to me, I know their love for me isn’t dependent on my being useful.
That’s something I hope we can all come to understand with time.
Jamira
1st Born Daughter
As an only child of immigrant parents, this is so relatable.