At a recent family gathering, I was tentatively talking to my cousin about my decision to enroll both munchkins into family day care two days a week – one day for some freelance work I am currently doing and the other…well for some personal development (both professional and emotional). Instinctively, I was instantly justifying this ‘other day’, time away from child rearing, searching for something magnificent I’d be doing so I had legitimate reason for needing the kids to be in care. She saw right through it. As a single mother she can empathise well, but she knows what she is talking about too. She calls it personal admin. She believes people respond to the term administration, our social conditioning sees to it. To administer something seems important, official. People don’t question it. Personal admin is important. It’s the washing, cooking, bank, bills, post office, transport office, hairdresser, beautician, movies, going to the bathroom by yourself. It is all of these things and a neverending list of others. It is also me time. This is both important and essential for survival, happiness and peace.
This is a new concept to me. Typically, I am constantly racked with guilt about me time. I desperately crave it, yet find it almost impossible to take because I think I should be working (and by work I mean doing something engaging with the kids). Since the New Year ticked over my positivity detector is working overtime. I’ve realised (finally!) that mother guilt is absolutely detrimental to advancement forward in life. The time to start shedding layers of built up guilt is now. Mother guilt is like old daggy clothes, no one wants to be in and no one looks good in. Not ever.
In the last couple of days I have made an earnest list of resolutions for the year to ensure personal wellbeing. It has been a refreshing experience. So with gleeful abandon, I choose to shed mother guilt layer #1 and wait joyfully for Friday to roll onto my doorstep. Don’t call, I’ll be taking care of personal admin.
How do you approach personal admin tasks/activities?