I’m a selfish mother. I guess that’s okay.
Parenthood exposes the real you to yourself like nothing else does.
I battle a broken heart every single day. As our daughter is growing up, she has started to put up more resistance and show more disappointment when my husband and I leave for work in the morning. It seems to me that my husband doesn’t feel as guilty about leaving her, but I go through mental anguish every single time. I was telling about this to a friend recently, and he said to me, “Why don’t you just quit working? If your daughter becomes sad at your leaving, she might just grow up to hate you”.
On a daily basis, I question if having a job is really that important to me. Certainly, even if I don’t earn, our family would not have a difficult time financially. Then why wouldn’t I just stay at home and keep my baby happy? After all, isn’t that what mums are supposed to do? Keep their babies happy. Nurture them. See them grow every single minute, lest they miss their babies’ first chuckles, first steps, first words. Aren’t moms supposed to forego all of their earlier avatars and submerge themselves in this newly acquired identity of being a mother?
I love the experience of motherhood. If there is one thing that teaches you more about life than anything else, it has to be parenting.
It’s not that I don’t like spending time with my daughter. I really love our evenings and weekends together. However, if I feel a strong need on a daily basis to meet other adults, to be intellectually stimulated, and to have time to myself, am I selfish? If someone’s self-worth arises not from just bringing up a child well, but also from doing things that she loved doing before she became a mom and may still love doing, is it right for some people to label her as being selfish and not being an “ideal” mother?
The only parenting book I ever read had one great advice — for a baby to feel happy and healthy, the parents need to be happy and healthy too. The author said this in the context of sleep deprivation that parents of all newborns (and infants) go through. But, I think that this is also true in general. To help my daughter forge a strong identity for herself, shouldn’t I have my own strong sense of identity?
