A couple of weeks ago I was woken up by a call at around 6:30 in the morning. A friend of mine needed to get to the airport and the person that had agreed to take them had canceled at the very last minute. It wasn’t a huge emergency, as emergencies go; everybody got where they needed to be safely and in a timely manner. But my friend is almost certainly never going to ask that same person to drive them to the airport again.
Ultimately the whole thing was just a minor incident, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind, because minor incidents like this are the kind of thing that can add up if you let them. We are living through hard times—everyone is busy, everything is expensive, we are all stressed out and have too much to do. Social media is full of people making little jokes about how scary it is to talk to people on the phone, and how good it feels to cancel plans. Sometimes things do come up in life, and we have to handle things that take us away from whatever we originally had on our schedule. The problem is that every time you cancel something you planned to do with someone else—whether it’s a fun easy thing like grabbing lunch or coffee, or something less convenient, like helping them move or getting up early to drive them to the airport—you also give up that opportunity for connection. Your bonds grow weaker. You don’t make new plans and eventually you may stop talking to that person altogether.
Before I follow this line of thinking any further and write a whole book about how important individual relationships are when it comes to creating community, I need to stop and focus on why this concept is so important when it comes to doula work in particular. Because the most fundamental responsibility of doula work is showing up when you say you will. When you are working with people who a grieving, stressed out, or possibly even in crisis, it is vitally important for them to know they can count on you to be there.
This doesn’t mean you need to be available to clients 24 hours a day or that you should drop everything every time they call you. It does mean that when you make an appointment, you are there on time. It means that when you receive a message, you respond promptly. It can, and often should, mean setting good boundaries about when you are available (for example, giving clients a business number and being clear that you do not answer the phone after 6 pm), but it always, always means being there when you say you will.
We often say it as if it’s easy—“Just show up, it’s that simple!” But simple and easy are two different things. Showing up is simple. Staying home is much easier. As doulas, we are committed to doing the tough stuff, showing up for our clients and for each other.
