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Me time
Filed under: Just For Moms, Just For Dads, Work Life
Me time is a valuable commodity in our household. It is bartered, it is recorded for future trade off, it is used in heated discussions about life balance, about how it is required to be a better parent, how it is sometimes needed to maintain a hum of sanity.
I need it. There is no doubt about it. I feel guilty because of it, as the majority of my time is spent in a downtown office, answering phones and e-mail pings. How dare I demand time away from my kids and my wife when such a small percentage of time in a week is actually available to be spent with them.
My wife needs it. Also no doubt about it. i can see it in her clenched jaw as the mayhem of our life surrounds her. She is much more laid back than I am, her even tone and fluid hand gestures much more conducive to child rearing than my volume roller coaster and T-Rex hands and arms. But I see it. Her jutted chin and spits of hair unraveling along with her patience.
We have it better than most. A nanny who lives with us and loves our kids daily, helping out with the laundry maelstrom and peanut butter knives laying dormant on the counter. We only have two kids to manage, and incomes that provide us with luxuries like date nights or poker weekends. I recognize this. Yet our most common argument is that me time we feel we so richly deserve.
Opening myself up on here will of course allow me to labeled a whiner, to suck it up, I chose to have kids, they did not choose to be born. I am just admitting it is a very real conflict in our house, and one we have to communicate slowly and softly to help resolve. To be deliberate and literal enough to plan such me times seems so rigid, like the sex appointments that we never kept. These are the issues that easily allow resentment to build and fester, so we do try and be selfless and offer me time, but usually through clenched, green teeth.
I am interested how other families deal with the balance of me time.
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 2)
11-02-2007 @ 11:35PM
andiepauly said...How very tragic that we have become such a self centered society. Me time? You did not conceive by osmosis. We all know how children arrive on this planet. Why do you have children and then abandon them to virtual strangers on daily basis. I'm not talking about those of you who are single parents due to no choice of your own. Most people work just so they can have more "stuff", and their child's welfare is secondary, or even tertiary to their own needs. And me time on top of that? I am truly saddened for your children. No wonder this country is such a mess!The oxygen mask theory is only an excuse for abbhorent behavior. YOU ARE NOT BENEFITTING YOUR CHILD IN ANY WAY WHEN YOU PUT YOURSELF AND YOUR QUEST FOR "STUFF" FIRST!
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