Woman shares how mom friend's death changed her view on asking for help

By Yi-Jin Yu

It's been over two years since Allison Roozen's best mom friend died, and in the months since, Roozen has come to recognize just how many roles her friend played and how her own perspective of what a mother can and should do is unsustainable.

Roozen, a mom of three in Washington, opened up about her realization in an April 14 TikTok post that has been viewed more than 449,000 times and sparked over hundreds of comments. In the accompanying caption, Roozen wrote, "Mom life is too much for just one person."

Courtesy of Allison Roozen

Allison Roozen said she was inspired to share on TikTok about her late friend's role as a mom after she began reaching out for outside help as a mom of three.

According to Roozen, her best friend Ashley was well-supported by her husband and family before her death from a rare cancer in November 2020, but there were still many different roles Ashley held or took part in on a daily basis, and not enough people considered its impact until she died, something that Roozen said is reflected in a broader scale within society.

"The video is me reflecting on how after my friend passed, how her role as a stay-at-home mom has been accommodated -- and the point of the video was really just [to show] how big of a role moms are filling and how it's kind of unrealistic for us to be expected to fill all of those roles," Roozen explained to "Good Morning America."

Courtesy of Allison Roozen

Allison Roozen is a mom of three and her late friend Ashley had two kids.

"Personally, I think what it has illuminated, seeing this situation, is that I expect that of myself, and so I need to change my own expectations and be more OK myself and that that's kind of like where it can start to change," Roozen continued.

Roozen said society has made some progress considering what moms need postpartum, but moms could still benefit from more help in the first few weeks, months and years after welcoming a child.

"I think that we've become much more open to like, 'Oh, we need to take care of moms postpartum' or like, 'Oh, she's struggling with her mental health, we need to help her' … and I think what is missing is that, 'No, she just needs constant help because it's too much to carry,'" Roozen said.

Courtesy of Allison Roozen

Allison Roozen said she and her late friend Ashley bonded over being parents, even when they lived in different states.

After Ashley's death, Roozen said Ashley's husband enlisted the help of multiple people, including a landscaper, house cleaner, two babysitters, neighbors, and family members, such as their kids' grandparents, to pick up the workload.

"He does everything for that family," she said.

But at the end of the day, she added, 'He's doing everything he can and more, and he needs help."

Courtesy of Allison Roozen

Allison Roozen said she and Ashley first became friends in high school and then became close mom friends after they married and had kids.

For Roozen personally, she said she has gradually started to take steps to change her expectations and find outside support for her own family, hiring neighbors to come babysit her children every so often when needed.

"While I feel like the work is pretty evenly split between my husband and I, it's still just a lot for us with the three kids," she said.

"That's kind of where it can start to change and not only should I be open to hiring a babysitter, but I should also cut myself slack if I want to do a meal service or have a house cleaner that comes once a month or whatever it is to just make it more of a group effort, because raising kids is a group effort," said Roozen. "They don't say 'it takes a village' for nothing, and I think we're just in a place in our society where you might just have to hire your village."

Roozen added, "It used to come with a tinge of like, 'Oh, well, I'm not doing good enough. So I have to have lower expectations.' And I think now it's more like, 'No, they're just realistic. It's not that I have low expectations, it's that I have realistic expectations."

Roozen said she's not the only one reconsidering what a mother should take on and what roles a parent should assume, noting that it's an ongoing conversation she has seen being discussed by other parents on social media, including fathers on TikTok.

"I thought that as I progressed through motherhood, I would get better, to the point where I didn't need help, because now I've got it, I've figured it out. And I think the inverse is true -- I know what I'm doing, but also, there's more for me to do. So I actually need more help now than I would have in the beginning," Roozen said. "TikTok accounts of stay-at-home dads I find really interesting because it really shows that it's not a gender thing at all. It's the role and how we assign that role."

Roozen also noted that she understands what a privilege it can be to be able to call on the help of others.

"It would also be relevant to the conversation that while, yeah, be empowered to hire help that you need, that's not an option for everyone -- and so, there's a deeper layer, that we just need better systems of support [within our communities and society]," she said.