I Chose to Neglect

I had a day last week where I felt the horrible feeling of "motherly neglect." If you're a mother or caretaker I'm sure you can relate. It's a time where you do what you want to do and you somewhat shirk on your mother/wife responsibilities. I contemplated this feeling and almost posted about it last Wednesday, (I even took a picture to go along with the post!) but I didn't. I mean, how could I post about mother's neglect just after I posted about a mother's love?

It was noon-thirty that day and I was still in my pajamas, the beds were unmade, the breakfast dishes were still in the sink (or on the table), the waffle ingredients and iron were still on the counter, the kitchen table still had breakfast goop on it, and now it was time to make lunch. So what was I doing? Blogging, blog surfing (or blog stalking - however you prefer), emailing, and chatting with my hubby online. It was ME time. Pure, unadulterated me time.

As I sat there and saw the mess around me, I had a twinge of guilt. "I should be doing other things," I told myself. And then I found myself asking why I should feel this way. Why indeed should I feel guilty or even feel that I was neglecting my children or my "duties"? In fact, the boys had been fed a warm, healthy, whole wheat breakfast, they were dressed, and they were laughing and having a great time together. Why did I have this guilty cloud of neglect hanging over my head?

And then just a couple of days ago I was reading a blog I follow and found that this lady was having the exact same feelings. She was expressing her concerns to her sister when she said, "...I could do these things but I would have to neglect more than I am willing to bargain."

Her sister then gave this great advice, "But you can do anything you want to do. You can choose to neglect. Don't get stuck in that rut."

You can choose to neglect. Basically... it's okay to pick and choose the things that we are going to neglect in order to keep our sanity. We can't do EVERYTHING, therefore we have to neglect SOMETHING. Don't get stuck in that rut of thinking that it's not okay.

...And that morning last Thursday, I chose to neglect a clean house and me being dressed in order to have some ME time. And lo and behold, the house didn't come crumbling down just because I chose a little neglect.

I believe this guilty feeling of neglect is just a motherly instinct - also commonly known as mother's guilt. We usually all feel some form of it every day. That's just how God created us, and that's okay. I think mother's guilt helps us to become better mothers. It's a nasty, nagging feeling, but it can be there to help us. We can remember that feeling yesterday, and be a better mother and person today. We just can't let it overpower us.

We just can't let it get us stuck in that rut.