I'm selfish.

Except I'm not. This is a feminist issue.

I wrote this article a few weeks back and kept scheduling it and then worrying it was too negative or ‘angry feminist’ and that isn’t really my tone these days. My approach is gentler.

So I’d chicken out, put it back in drafts and write something else.

But then

Penny Wincer

wrote about being a ‘selfish’ reader, and I loved it. And I decided that to discuss selfishness, or supposed selfishness, might be useful.

I’m actually feeling differently now, a few weeks on, so I’m sharing this raw piece now but I’m also working on a piece about where I’m at today (which is: feeling hopeful and determined).

Here it is…

I'm selfish.

One of the advantages of growing up with two siblings was that we were extremely blunt with each other.

(I think this was an advantage.)

This gave me the impetus to explore other people’s perceptions of me from a young age.

For instance, if one of my siblings and I differed on our view of how we’d like the day to pan out, I would be called selfish.

At first, I internalised this perception and decided that yes, I probably was selfish.

But then, as I got older, I realised that when there are two people deciding something together - and they can’t agree - they are in fact both being selfish.

After all, to be selfish means:

(of a person, action, or motive) concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

Still, I took this embedded belief with me into adulthood and when a friend said to me:

“You’re always chasing the party; you always want to be where the fun is” -

I heard: you’re selfish.

I didn’t absorb the messages about the times I wasn’t being selfish - when I went out of my way for other people; listened to their challenges - just the selfish ones.

Soon, I was building up a bank of evidence to support my selfishness.

When I moved into the world of work, and discovered quite big ambition: again, I realised how selfish I was.

I wanted to rise. I wanted to earn more money. I wanted to succeed.

It was framed, in my mind, as an egotistical quest.

When I had my first baby and wanted - and needed - to return to work: selfish.

When I had my second baby and got him a childminder, two days a week, aged 10 months, so that I could write my first book: selfish.

When I had my third baby and my husband quit his job to run my business with me and for the first time since becoming a mother, I had proper support with the kids and home: extremely selfish.

Mothers are meant to do everything, and never complain. But ‘everything’ means never leaving your child’s side, until school, and also having a full career.

And this is, of course, impossible.

What about when I wasn’t selfish?

I could swim back through my career and list all the times I gave someone else a leg-up, or got them a commission/work/a book deal - but I don’t.

The negative narrative always digs itself deeper into the psyche.

I could wander back through my nine years of motherhood and note the nights I breastfed for hours, cradled ill toddlers, got through with a few hours sleep - but I don’t.

Mothers are meant to do this stuff. You don’t get credit for your selflessness during those years because you chose to be a mother, and so you just have to get on with it.

As my children get older, and my writing career continues to grow, I reflect on the way mothers who dare to be creative are portrayed in literature.

I wrote an article about this, because the older female creative who also has children is so often framed as inherently selfish.

And now, as I work out what my children need most over the next few years, I am struggling to make decisions without the whisper of my selfishness.

Am I really thinking about them, or am I actually thinking about myself?

Well, perhaps, as mothers, our children’s needs will always be wrapped up with our own, because we are creating this life for them; they follow our lead.

As women, we so often put others first and yet I think we are also more often referred to as selfish.

Selfish, perhaps, for daring to even consider our own desires.

Certainly selfish for thinking we can enjoy a fulfilling career while also being good mothers to our children.

And we’re selfish for trying to answer our own needs, alongside our children’s needs, knowing that if our base needs are met, we have more to give.

‘Give’ is what we’re simply expected to do. Always. Whether or not any of our needs are being met.

Be flexible, amenable, selfless and nice.

What I find attractive

D’you know what I always admire in a friend? Her ability to know herself, and to believe she deserves goodness and joy and pleasure.

I have one friend, in particular, who is so brilliant at this and I look to her, admiringly, as she acknowledges her own hard work and how deserving she is of some fun, now.

The more women we see taking what they need - rather than just the scraps - the less burnout we’ll see.

We need to place the power back on the matriarch - who at one time was considered a powerful figure in society - and trust in her decisiveness.

Because even if it looks like she has a selfish agenda, the likelihood is that she is contemplating the wider impact of any decision.

And here’s how I’ll stay strong in my own convictions, without slipping into a fear-of-being-led-by-selfishness:

1. I close my eyes, put my hand on my heart and ask what matters most.

2. I hear the answer and I put it centrally, in my mind’s eye.

3. I ask what I need to do, in order to serve that.

4. I hear the answer, believe the higher self and get the fuck on with my plans.

Tell me: do you have an inner dialogue about being selfish?

Annie x