Comments on: Selfishness

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:10:31 +0000

Just chiming in to say that I bet it has *everything* to do with sleep deprivation, and crashing off hormones, and all of it….squershy Interwebs hugs to you. <3

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:08:46 +0000

post script. I think I’ve actually “bogged” several times this week. It’s “blogging” that I’ve missed…

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:05:45 +0000

The first time I read this post I didn’t realize how incredibly timely it is for me. I think I must have been too busy resenting my husband for what I considered to be his selfish behavior. ; )

Fourth time around and I’m finally noticing a pattern to my postpartum experience: I become a wretched score keeper in my marriage. Who is working the hardest? Who is getting the least sleep? How much down time are we each getting? I can make myself absolutely miserable making little tally marks and counting them up in my head. I nearly blew a gasket yesterday when P blogged not once, but TWICE. My little fair-ometer went berserk. “How selfish!” I thought. Doesn’t he know I haven’t had a chance to bog in weeks?

There is something grossly unjust about approaching relationships in that way, and I know that, ultimately, I’m the one who pays for it because it makes me so miserable. For some reason I keep thinking about the story your second born used to illustrate the difference between making things fair and making them equal. It’s rather childish of me to expect things to be equal, but most of the time I’d say that the division of labor in our house (and the dividends get from the work we each do) works out to be fair. I don’t know what it is about being postpartum that makes me loose sight of that fact and start the whole eye-twitching, blog counting, sleep coveting routine. Maybe it has something to do with extreme sleep deprivation?

At least it’s gotten less extreme with each baby. Either I’m becoming less selfish or there’s just so little “down” time anymore around here it hardly seems worth quibbling over!

By: karen

karen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:57:02 +0000

did you know you can’t copy and paste your blog, even to cite something specific? interesting and cool feature.

anyway, on projection: most certainly true. i’ve always suspected this of the most vehement ranters. that should be reason enough to dismiss it altogether, yet it’s those (perhaps because they are loudest) that transmit most clearly when i’m tune in to, as anne lamott calls it, KFKD. (or however she spells it —> K-fucked.)

By: karen

karen — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:53:35 +0000

oh, how i wish i weren’t migraine-ing and soooo tired and could respond intelligently, but suffice it to say that i hear you (or read you). the topic of selfishness is one that i consider often, most especially as it relates to motherhood (less so than just parenting). in fact, it’s my number one blog topic that’s reliably pierced through my brain-fog of the last, oh, 4 years, as something i must write about. the irony is that i do, but then i get distracted by my guilt (and my distraction-prone brain in general) about being so selfish and unproductive with my time. ha!

you are inspiring me to focus more on blogging (and the use of that form of “blog” still bothers me, but that’s a topic for another day). see? i am getting distracted again.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:26:01 +0000

“there is no evidence of car seats making children over the age of two significantly safer in a car accident”

I don’t know. A simple net search reveals at least a dozen studies that contradict this assumption. Here is one:

“The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have found that young children (ages 2-5) who are placed in adult seat belts rather than car seats or booster seats are 4 times more likely to suffer head, brain, and other devastating injuries, according to a study in the June issue of Pediatrics”

http://bcbsma.medscape.com/viewarticle/411894

By: sarah gilbert

sarah gilbert — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:26:26 +0000

what a great realization. i came to the conclusion late last night that one of the oft-repeated accusations of commenters regarding any critical analysis of another person, i.e., “you’re just jealous!” was actually partly true. yes, I still believe what I said about the juggle being really difficult and I don’t understand the choices she’s made. but truly? I’m jealous that I don’t have sarah palin’s resources, that i don’t have someone who can (symbolically) take the baby off my hands when i’m giving a speech and hand him back afterwards, that i don’t have the money to afford my family the round-the-clock loving and attentive childcare she’ll need if she (heaven forbid) becomes VP. so your realization fits very nicely into this. yes. when i don’t have the appropriate measure of help to run, and i see other people running every day, and i think, ‘how selfish.’ when i see other mamas going out a few times a week for late night drinks and child-free fun, i think, ‘how selfish,’ even though perhaps i’d be with them if i felt jonathan was emotionally up to giving the boys a healthy dinner and putting them to bed with the same measure of patience i’m generally able to muster at bedtime. we could *all* use a more reasoned, thoughtful approach to our judgments of selfishness — both self-imposed and external.

also, i’ve often felt unfairly constrained by the carseat requirement, and simultaneously unable to accept the judgment that i know would come were i to forego seats for my older boys (and that tiny risk they’d be injured and it would be MY FAULT). maybe that’s a small part of my enthusiasm over biking.