As parents living in today’s “individualistic” Western culture, we struggle to ask for and accept help—even after we’ve depleted our resources.

A 2022 Nutrisystem survey of Americans found that 73 percent of Americans don’t ask for help until “they absolutely need it.”

This flavor of persistent, self-reliant individualism is widespread in America. “Individualism,” according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is “the idea that each person should think and act independently rather than depending on others.”

Despite our cultural loyalty to individualism, we’re keenly aware that refusing help is hurting us. In the Nutrisystem survey, over half of the respondents admitted “try[ing] to go at it alone” was holding them back in life.

One direct consequence of the “going at it alone” mentality for parents is exhaustion.

In 2021, Isabelle Roskam, professor of developmental and parenting psychology at UCLouvain, a university and top-ranked research institution in Belgium, published an international study on parental burnout.

The study, titled “Parental Burnout Around the Globe: a 42-Country Study,” examined levels of parental burnout across 42 countries. More than 17,000 parents participated.

The research team discovered “the prevalence of parental burnout varies dramatically across countries.” The study showed “that individualistic cultures, in particular, displayed a noticeably higher prevalence . . . of parental burnout.”

According to the study, individualism in our culture contributes more significantly to parental burnout than economic inequalities across cultures, any individual or family characteristic, number or age of children, or the amount of time we spend with our children.

If you are trying to “go at it alone” and you are tired, you are not alone. The enemy seeks to isolate us, but God has other plans for us.

God has help for us. In God’s Word, one of his many names is Helper. (Psalm 54:4; Hebrews 13:6; Psalm 118:7; Psalm 121:1-2; Isaiah 41:13).

God encourages us to accept help. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.”

In the book of Ruth, we see how God can work extraordinary plans for us and those around us when we accept his help.

In Ruth 1, we meet a Jewish mother Naomi, her husband and their two sons, who have traveled from Bethlehem to Moab to avoid a famine. At this point, the family has lived in Moab for about a decade, and both sons have married but have no children.

We quickly learn that Naomi’s husband has died, and now both her sons have died, as well. (Ruth 1:3, 5). Their deaths leave Naomi and her two daughters-in-law without husbands, and Naomi decides to return to her hometown Bethlehem where she hears the famine may be over. (Ruth 1:6).

Naomi’s former daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth go with her as she sets out, but she instructs them to turn back. (Ruth 1:7-8). When she attempts to part with them, tearfully, they again offer to come with her.

She refuses their help, in part because she has nothing of equal value to offer in return.

They say, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi says, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?’” (Ruth 1:10-11).

Ruth, however, is persistent. “Ruth clung to her.” (Ruth 1:14). Even then, Naomi resists. She tells Ruth, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” (Ruth 1:15). But Ruth says, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16).

Only after this exchange does Naomi finally accept help and companionship. The text says, “[W]hen Naomi saw that [Ruth] was determined to go with her, she said no more.” (Ruth 1:18).

Accepting help put both Naomi and Ruth in an awkward position at first. On their return to Bethlehem, they drew the eyes of the whole town. Naomi had returned without her family at the side of an unknown foreign woman as her companion. The text says, “[T]he whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’” (Ruth 1:19).

Yet, through the help of Ruth, God granted Naomi comfort as she grieved the loss of her husband and sons (see Ruth 1:19-21), and he gave provision through Ruth’s hard work reaping fields in Judah. (Ruth 2).

In the end, as a result of their toil together, God blessed both with family, sustained provision, and a restored relationship with him. (Ruth 4:13-17).

[Ruth] became [Boaz’s] wife … and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’ Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi.’ They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of [King] David.

By accepting that help was a part of God’s plan for Naomi, she immeasurably blessed those around her.

God has help for us.

Let us accept his help.