Love yourselves first

Istarted my day with a guilt trip today after I yelled at my daughter for missing her school bus. It was her last day of school for the session, a party to celebrate it, she was happy and enjoying her dressing up routine and then her bubble broke, with me thundering over her, screaming. Even my husband joined… all because she was enjoying herself too much at the end of the year and missed her school bus.

She went to school teary-eyed. I had ruined her party, her day. As I watched her enter the school gate I was consumed with infinite guilt. I tried to reason with myself on her follies and why she deserved it. All I came back with was why she

didn’t, and how I had piled all my stress on her – and not for the first time. I wondered if other parents felt the same. Many of us seem to be in a rush, in search for perfection.

Why did I lose my cool? Because I expect my daughter to be disciplined, get ready and go to school on time. But more than that – because I see this small slip as my failure as a mother in disciplining my child, my failure as a homemaker in ensuring everything was working like clockwork and, my failure for wasting the hard earned money – first on the bus fees and then on a taxi we had to take. I was a failure in my own eyes and my daughter bore the brunt of it. Others’ approval had started becoming the deciding factor as far as self worth was concerned.

There is a great emphasis put on kindness towards others. Being polite, loving towards family, patient with kids, warm in relationships; but in the midst of all this, somewhere, someone forgot to remind us to be kind, and loving towards our own self.

Why do we forget to tell ourselves that it’s okay to slip and make mistakes? With this realisation, I hope to make a conscious effort towards getting control back on myself.

The reader is based in Dubai.