Entitlement

I chatted with a good friend of mine today about women and how some of us seem to have taken on a new way of thinking in regards to staying at home with young children. There's this idea that we are entitled to be spoiled rotten with our expensive yoga clothes and lattes, toiling away the day at the gym doing a downward dog while some 14 year-old girl with braces and zits looks after our babies, and then when we finally come home to our 4000 sq foot houses, freshly cleaned by someone else, we plunk down into our brand new plush leopard print chaise lounge, feigning exhaustion so as to get out of making dinner for our husbands who have been busting their asses all day out in the real world. Phew! I'm tired just typing that out! Someone please pass me a triple grande four pump sugar-free vanilla nonfat extra hot no foam latte in a platinum-lined cup. And I could really use some fresh highlights.

Please don't think that I don't get what it's like to have young kids. I barely remember those days for the sleep deprivation except, as in most traumatic memories, I will from time to time have vivid flashbacks of pukefests in the minivan or a kid doing the gingerbread man in my arms while screaming in the middle of a public place and then headbutting me in the face just to punctuate the moment. There's nothing I'd rather do in that situation than head to the gym and hand them over to someone else while I lick a yoga mat for an hour and a half.

There's nothing wrong with that, either. I'm not saying we can't have breaks, that we can't sip stupid lattes or go to the gym or get highlights. It's a matter of the heart though, and a lot of women seem to think that they're entitled to this stuff as a way of life rather than a nice treat. And then what happens is a big pile of resentment starts to form, where the dude comes home from a long day at work and the only person he has to connect with is busy in the bathroom staring at her own reflection in the mirror. She can't see past herself to see the hunger in his eyes.

There's so much more to this subject and I know I'm not doing it justice, so I apologize for stirring it up and then jumping ship. But I think it's worth thinking about even if we don't like what we see.