Bonni Sollars

If we are teaching our kids respect, shouldn't we also respect ourselves?
Sometimes for peace and quiet I go shopping by myself. At those times,
I say no when the kids ask to go with me. It is my choice because it is
my body that I am taking to the store and because taking care of the kids
at the store would be my responsibility. Part of learning about life is
learning that the answer to every request is not always yes. I think
it's important to be honest. If I don't want to take them and I say no,
but then changed my mind because they pleaded or something, I might feel
coerced and resentful of my loss of peace. So I say choice is coupled
with responsibility. Whoever has the burden of responsibility is the one
who gets the choice. If my children said they wanted to go to the store
ahead of time, so I could make a choice ahead of time and not last
minute, it would probably help, because then I could be planning on that
instead of planning on some peace and quiet. Then I wouldn't feel
disappointed. So then they are being considerate and learning people
skills. Actually, I usually take them and am glad to because they are so
wonderful I hate being away from them. What I'm trying to say is,
sometimes the parent needs to think about his or her own needs first, and
the child's needs are secondary, because how can you care for your child
if you're not caring for yourself first?
Bonni

Fetteroll

on 9/10/01 3:51 PM, Bonni Sollars <BSOLLARS@...> wrote:

> What I'm trying to say is,
> sometimes the parent needs to think about his or her own needs first, and
> the child's needs are secondary, because how can you care for your child
> if you're not caring for yourself first?

I think it's very important.

But doing things we need to do for ourselves and our own health are separate
from the things we do to keep the family functioning, eg, meals, cleaning,
picking up dry cleaning, banking, errands. Perhaps it's clearer to say that
sometimes a *person's* own needs override *other's* needs.

I think it's when we place the way we choose to meet the family's needs over
the needs of people in the family is when we need to step back and question.
If we decide it's okay to inconvenience the kids for our needs -- and kids
*won't* see what we're doing (like making dinner) as selflish self-sacrifice
because they *do* recognize that we could choose to do things differently,
we *are* choosing -- then we shouldn't be surprised if the kids decide it's
okay to inconvenience us when they choose to meet their own needs.

Joyce