Calling Bullshit On…Me Time

I can only write this from my stand point, but for me this whole “Me Time” is one high pile of Bullshit. Me Time I believe is a phrase coined up to sell luxury packages & things to tired, emotionally drained parents. In my view it’s quite simply a label that is used by people to justify giving themselves a chance to fulfil a fundamental human need. That need? Leisure Time. Google it, its a fundamental Basic human need.

My problem with the phrase is somehow possibly because of luxury brand marketing, Me Time now stands for something a little bit sneaky, a little bit of sneaky luxury time, that you deserve ( undertone not need, undertone sneaking away from your responsibilities ). When in fact it’s a fundamental human need. In simple terms, A need you need to satisfy to feel fulfilled as a human being.

I was recently visiting a cousin of mine who had just had her second baby. Myself, my cousin & her partner were all in various states of exhaustion for all different reasons. The conversation some how turned to our childhoods, our mothers & how they coped with motherhood. My cousins partner announced when I was young my mothers friends would come around & sit in the kitchen smoking, laughing & drinking tea. If any of us stuck our heads into the kitchen we’d be threatened & escorted out promptly. Now, he says, you do something like that & your seen as a bad parent.

Similarly I was visiting my mother during the week & she produced an article from a paper on how to raise girls. She declared if you were to keeping reading things like that you’d drive yourself crazy with the guilt that your doing it all wrong. I asked her did you ever read a parenting book, her response sure where would I have found the time. The women had in fact loads of time but she just didn’t waste it on reading things to make her worry more, she did things she enjoyed.

All this got me thinking, I never, ever heard the phrase, “Me Time” growing up. My mother played squash, she played bridge, my father played golf but they never did Me Time. They also never bet themselves up for leaving us for a few hours or days to go off & enjoy themselves. Their activities were seen as leisure time, & not because they deserved it but for the need to have some fun.

I’m sitting here writing this, is this me time or is something I need to do to try stay sane, with two small kids. I exercise twice a week to stay some way healthy is that me time or just a sensible thing to do? I shower & for 5 glorious minutes I’m on my own, me time or is it just been hygienic?

I think we’re all gone a little bit loola, a bit OTT on this Me Time. In fairness most of us grew up in a time where there wasn’t a bob in the country, & foreign holidays & spa packages were things off Dallas. Your mother told you to stop annoying her & go outside & play, while she chain smoked on the phone to her friend for an hour. Now it’s all treat yourself to this, you deserve that, go on indulge in some Me Time. I think when people start suggesting they are some how indulging in life by having Me Time, it’s like saying I’m going to indulge & have a drink of water today, it’s bullshit.

I ll be honest I just let the kids watch Unizoomi on The TV for the entire time I was writing this. You see I don’t smoke & all my friends are working so I can’t phone them like my mother did in the middle of the day, but the result will be the same. I’ll return to mommy mode a happier, healthier, saner person.

So for me, I’m not looking at it as Me Time anymore, its simply fulfilling a basic need by doing something for myself & nobody else, to feel more like me, more human.

If slightly ignoring the rest of the worlds needs from time to time, to ensure my own survival has to have a title, I’ll call it as it is Pilates, yoga, running, the cinema, Pinot Grigio. As for Me Time ….. that’s Bullshit.