I self-identify as a selfish mom. I don’t know if there’s a club of like-minded moms out there or if I am an anomaly, but I try to confess this without too much pride or shame. I try to meet my daughter’s needs, but I also try to put myself first in most situations.

I’ve written about putting on my own oxygen mask first and a few months later, I think this idea still applies.

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One of the ways that parental love and devotion is measured in our American, middle-class world is in how much parents DO for their kids. We schedule play dates for our kids. We buy birthday presents for our kid’s classmates. We shuttle our kids to swimming camp, fencing lessons, Chinese tutoring and chess club. We make sure there are plenty of opportunities for learning experiences. All of this is great stuff! Who doesn’t want to know Chinese afterall? But all of it makes the “job” of parenting even more taxing.

In the same vein, if I am the family expert on everything, then I have instantly made my life harder by being the only one who knows where things are or how the baby is rocked “just so.” Ack!

But what’s the big deal with making our own lives harder? Isn’t that what being a parent is all about? Isn’t that parental love?

The first question for the over-scheduled family is: Is it more important for a child to have a head start in academics and activities OR is it more important that they have a less-stressed parent (and life)? When we add commotion to our own lives, we fill up our B.S. bucket more quickly every day. When it gets full, it spills on to whoever is near us- our kids, our partners, our friends. Making ourselves a little more crazy can inevitably make our kids feel that way too. They’ll start to feel always in a rush or always under pressure. Having felt those things as a grown-up, I would never want to hurry their introduction into childhood. Having a caring parent who takes an interest in their kid is more valuable than all the archery and music lessons in the world.

And for the parent who is the expert on family-life, your job is extra hard because you have to keep track of EVERYONE’S shoes, not just your own. You have to know what gear to pack into what bag on any given day. You have to know what child likes what food. You have to know whose chore it is to clear the table on Wednesdays. When you share your brain with so many other people, it’s difficult for you to keep any bits of it for yourself. This makes you the responsible party for everything kid related. If you always know where their shoes are, they won’t have to know where they are. If you always pack their bag, then they won’t have to know what to bring. You might think that you’re making your kid’s life better by making it easier, but they’re also being made a bit helpless by your ‘expertise.’

These are a couple of reasons that I’m going to try to watch out for me as much as I can as I continue down this parenting road. I am not planning on losing myself in my new role. I’m not planning on making my daughter’s life too easy by taking care of everything for her (even now, when she’s a baby). I’m not planning on forgetting the word “I.”

I know that plenty of this is easier said than done in the current parental landscape, but I’m going to try to remember that making my life harder isn’t necessarily going to be better for my kid.

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