A while back, I made a comment to an acquaintance that I had spent most of a rainy day curled up on the couch with a book.
She sneered that she wished she could waste a day like that, but she had too many things to do.
Um. Okay. Here comes the grumpy old lady, you little whipper-snapper you.
I did not waste a day. I had the luxury of doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Twenty years ago, I did all that wife-mother-worker-housekeeper stuff. I had a child in school and activities, I had a house to keep up, I was in school full time and working part time. I ran all day and most the night, seven days a week.
So don't go pulling your faux superiority on me, Miss McPrissyPants.
I really don't get the judgment that women pass on each other over everything. I honestly don't remember it being that bad when my son was young. (Unless then, like now, I just really didn't give a cracked tin horn what a random stranger or peripheral acquaintance thought of me. And my friends just have to deal cos they know how I am and if they don't like it, they wouldn't be my friends.)
I understand the need to put your children first when they are younger, but when did how much of yourself that you sacrificed become the measure of the "better" mother?
Is it some sort of repressed jealousy? A form of insecurity? The more you do, the better person you are?
Just be who you are or need to be and let others be who they are. We got enough to deal with in this world without all this sniping and snipping.
Thor sez: I left a hair ball this big under the bed!
5 comments:
my mum kept a perfect house as I was growing up, she put housework before with me,always bothered about what the relatives and neighbours thought if she wasn't the perfect wife and mother, we're not close, my son grew up in a messy house, we're close - enough said!
Josie x
She's too young to understand that those "days on the couch curled up with a book" (or whatever equivalent you have) are mental health days.
That's why we are mentally healthy and she's... well, we're not sure.
I totally agree with you....wearing a badge of busyNESS
as a badge of honor....I worked in broadcasting for 27 years....became a single parent when my daughter was 10 (she is now
40 and a spectacular mom and special ed teacher)....I NEVER said to a woman who didn't have a job outside her home "How in the world do you spend your days!!!"
I get that alot now.....
I feel NO SHAME in sitting still
and admiring the birds outside my window....reading a book...I am thankful to have the time to help our disabled friend...an aging parent...grandchildren...I will not apologize....I will be thankful
hurrah! well said, Phx Pat
"Miss McPrissyPants"--LOL!
And, thanks, I try so hard not to feel guilty about taking it easy on a Sunday instead of tending to my (very) small business and feeling envious of people who do get to curl up with a book for a day--of course, there's no reason I can't do that, too, right? It's a matter of what choices we make and whatever those choices are, we're responsible for them and no one else.
So, yeah, whatever is important for mental health (thanks, Pixel!) is good. No reason for guilt or envy.
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