"Selfish" vs. "Deserving"

As a woman, being deserving can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. Most of us have been brought up in a world where being deserving is confused with being selfish. From the time we are little girls we are taught to take care of everyone around us. Even if we are encouraged to strive for equality amongst the sexes, we tend to lean more toward a typical nurturing female role.

Since the beginning of time women took care of the all aspects of the home and family. The man was the one who worked the land, brought home the food and gave his wife and children shelter. He was rarely home, and when he was, he depended on his wife to feed him and care for his children. This was the case for centuries before women began to feel unfulfilled and taken for granted. The Feminist movement that we relate to the most is that of a social and cultural fight for equality in the 1960’s. The concept seemed quite simple as women believed in their right to obtain and be passionate about careers beyond house cleaning, babysitting and outside of the home. They demanded equal pay and equal opportunity; sounds fair and uncomplicated.

Here’s the glitch; we women actually thought that men would jump in and perform equal house and child care duties. Sorry ladies, although many of them did up the ante and pitch in a little more, their perception of equality in that area is a little different from ours. Not only does this pose a problem for us, but there is yet another glitch; we, the women, have a hard time voicing our discontent in that area. We are really good at defending ourselves when it comes to a pay raise or career advancement, but when it comes to asking our spouse for help with the house or the children, we somehow falter.

I know, you’re nodding your head in agreement and you’re trying to figure out, “why am I not more assertive about getting more help from him?” Here’s why. We (women) have a genetic predisposition to needing to take care of our family. We are natural nurturers and managers. We know that we can do it better and that overrides us handing the reigns over to him. The fact that they seldom volunteer to help, allows us to blame them for not doing their equal share. The reality is that we need to be willing to give them the leeway to do it their way before we can ask them to perform the task at all.

“But, why should I even have to ask?” you question. Well, you do because they are also prewired to come home after a day of work and relax. Remember up in paragraph 2; that’s what they have been doing forever. I know it’s not fair, but it is what it is and you need to get over it or, you will be doing everything for a long time and resentment will take over and well, that’s another blog post............

So back to “deserving” verses “selfish”. It is not selfish to want the same amount of time as your husband to do the things that you want to do. You are deserving of time and things and love and respect. But, listen carefully ~ if you don’t take the time to do the things that you love, you will never get the respect that you deserve, because it needs to come from you first. Then, maybe he will catch on............ but, you’ll probably still need to ask. And maybe that’s o.k.