Selfishness and Guilt

I was talking to my beautiful bestie this morning and the subject of selfishness and guilt came up.

We agreed that it seems men tend to be innately selfish and feel no guilt over the selfishness whatsoever. Okay, to be fair, the men WE know have moments of selfishness and feel no guilt over it. I am not saying either her husband or my own is a selfish pig and that they are never unselfish but…bear with me, okay?

What really came of our conversation was the idea that if we, either Julie or I, ever take a moment or even a weekend and do something that feels even a little selfish or self-indulgent, we are drown in guilt over this.

An example I gave was the fact that every single evening, I sit on our couch with my girls and they both try to share the center couch cushion with me for several hours. By the time a couple of hours has passed, I am touched out. I’m ready for some space. And so I ask for it and am immediately wrapped in guilt over asking my children to get off me already.

See, I know how lucky I am that they both still want to be near me to the point of appearing to want to crawl back inside my body. I know that as the mother of ten year old, my days of snuggles and long-limbed draping are numbered.

I know all these things and yet after several hours of togetherness, I long for three inches to move my elbows without jabbing someone in the ribs.

My husband, on the other hand, never apologizes for telling one of them to stop touching him. I don’t think it occurs to him to apologize. He needs his space, he asks for it and that’s all okay.

I know it is okay too. I do. I know it is okay for me to ask for space too. But my mommy-guilt tells me that it’s not. I need to learn to silence that sucker because it’s wrong.

I hope in asking for space I’m showing my girls that it’s okay for them to someday put their needs above the wants of others. I will always put their needs first. They know this. But I want them to realize that while yes, I’m a mother, I’m also a person with needs of my own and I’m allowed to put them first every so often.

I want them to know this so that someday, if/when they’re mothers, they aren’t consumed by the guilt that often keeps me awake at night.