Smearing sunscreen on my face at the pool, I realized it was just me and my older son. My husband had already taken our younger son to the water.

“Hey, how does my face look?” I asked him. Rather than giving me a silly answer, he looked thoughtfully at it and said, “There’s some near your hair.”

Now, I could have looked at the selfie setting on my phone, but I’m glad I didn’t. That’s because I don’t want to teach my children independence. I want to teach them interdependence.

True independence doesn’t exist. Everyone relies on someone for something and always has. The independent pioneer who made their way in the West – a la Little House on the Prairie – has always been a gross, racist myth. (In real life, Pa Wilder stole his land from areas that the government had promised to Native Americans who lived there. They had to move so often because he was run out of town multiple times.) No one can grow food, cook food, raise kids, build houses, transport themselves places, make their own goods, etc. by themselves. When we pretend that we don’t rely on other people to do all of those things, we reduce those other people to objects. Cogs in a machine. It’s fast-track from there to reinforcing vast, systemic injustices. As author Terry Pratchett said through one of his most beloved characters, “Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.”

It’s relevant on the smaller scale too. When we refuse to rely on others to help meet our needs, we will work and work and work until we burn ourselves out. We’ll waste our strengths by struggling to do it all instead of having others help us in our weak points. This is an area that I think my husband and I excel at. Without judgment, I’m willing to step up when there’s something he has challenges with – like packing or calling people on the phone – and he can take over with the kids when everything is just too much for me. (He takes care of the kids most of the time as a stay-at-home parent, so it’s usually when we’re both exhausted.) Thinking we can be truly independent also robs us of other people’s perspectives. We’ll only see things from our own point of view and miss out on so much we can learn from others.

I’m certainly as guilty of trying to be independent as anyone. I don’t want to rely on others, don’t want to bother others. Asking for help when it’s something I think I “should” be able to do myself is hard. And seeing things from other people’s perspectives is exceptionally difficult for me. I have to really work at it. But it’s so worth it.

Which was why I was so glad to make that gesture with the sunscreen. For similar reasons, I asked him to check my harness when we went rock climbing together. We’re shifting to a relationship where he will depend less and less on me to fulfill his needs and it will become a more equal relationship in terms of dependence. Not for a long, long time – he’s still a kid – but these little steps show him that I trust his judgment. That sometimes I need his help. That one day I’ll be relying on him to belay me – and more.

There are other ways to demonstrate that interdependence – having kids chip in with collective chores is a big one – but it shows up in these small, everyday exchanges as well.