Parents Are Selfish, We Just Have To Pretend We're Not

One of the things I miss most about life before kids, and even life before marriage, is the freedom to do whatever I wanted without having to consult, update, or consider other people.

Every day at 6:00A there is an employee who works the night shift at the police station next door to my home who fires up the loudest muscle car I have ever heard at the conclusion of their shift. My bedroom window is two feet away from the parking lot for the police station and, without fail, the roar of this engine wakes me up 30 minutes before I actually need to be awake. Every morning I mutter to myself “I hate him.” And I know it’s a “him.” You know it’s a “him.” We all know this is a guy because women do not feel the need to compensate for their insecurities with obnoxious vehicle modifications.

I have decided to leave a note on the car asking for his help. My goal is to suggest to the employee that he exit the parking lot through the back exit, driving by non-residential buildings instead of my home, which is the only residence next to the parking lot. This, however, would require me to exit my home late at night after this person’s shift begins to leave the note. Which means I have to let my wife know what I’m doing. Which means I have to say out loud my insane plan of sneaking through a police parking lot in the dark of night to leave a note to ask a stranger with a loud car to be less obnoxious.

I haven’t left the note yet because for some reason typing out my slightly unhinged idea is less intimidating than verbalizing my insanity to my wife. But if I had no one else to be accountable to, I could chase every wild idea that crossed my mind without a second thought. I’d be out there at 5:55A tomorrow waving a baseball bat in the parking lot seeking to intimidate the man into turning around and using the rear exit. But my intimate connection to another human being keeps me in check, and that is good.

With children, this inability to chase after any and every whim is further squelched. No longer can a person selfishly pursue leisure, travel, work, relationships, or any number of other things without considering how those pursuits will impact their children.

Do you hate your job? Sorry. You can’t quit because living on your savings with multiple mouths to feed is impossible. But if you were unattached? Floating along for a few months while you found the next great opportunity wouldn’t be so hard.

Have a dream of traveling to Europe with your partner? Too bad. Who on God’s green earth is going to keep your kids alive for a week or more while you’re gone? But without kids, the idea of cashing in that PTO and jumping on a plane isn’t so far fetched.

Would you like to spend a Saturday binging an entire series on your favorite streaming service? Good luck. Your TV is monopolized by Paw Patrol, and when the television is not blaring shows for kids, you’re either entertaining children, cleaning the house, or fighting off high levels of guilt as you stare at your phone for a few minutes, desperately trying to dissociate from the reality of parenting.

I knew this was coming- in theory. I understood that by getting married and then having kids, I would lose a certain level of freedom to choose and move as I pleased throughout life. However, I wrongly assumed that by willingly stepping into the role of husband and father that I would become less selfish. I thought that by relinquishing the ability to chase my whims, I would want my previous freedom less and less. I thought being a family man would beat out the selfishness in my spirit. The part of me that only wants to do what I want to do. The part of me that believes I am the star of my own movie. The part of me that struggles to put other people’s needs above my own. I thought after a decade of this life I would be a different person. But I’m not.

After 13 years of marriage and 9 years of parenting I’m not less selfish, I just behave less selfishly.

These are two very different things. Instead of thinking of my family more than myself out of a willing heart, I am thinking of their needs out of a commitment I made to care and provide for them. While still noble, in my opinion, being selfless and acting selflessly are not always the same thing. My selfish thoughts and feelings have not shifted much at all over the years, but my selfish tendencies have.

The idea of running off for a week or more with my wife to escape the monotony of day to day living still swims around in my mind. I selfishly want to run away for a little while, but I selflessly stay to care for my kids.

Dropping everything and finding a job in a cool part of the country is a fantasy I visit often. But I stay put because my kids love their school and my wife enjoys the proximity to her family. I selfishly want to live in the type of place that is glorified in movies, but I selflessly stay in Houston because it’s what is best for my family.

If I were picking how I wanted to spend my weekend, I would purchase a new game for my Nintendo Switch, and then eat, sleep, and live on my couch until I defeated the game. But I take the kids to sports, bribe them to go to the park when they have been on their iPad too long, and work to make sure their weekends are full of enough engaging activities to keep them from becoming screen zombies. I selfishly want to disappear into a screen each weekend, but I selflessly do whatever I can to make sure my kids aren’t doing that.

I am sure that many parents lose selfish inclinations and desires over the years. I don’t doubt that there are moms and dads who send their kids off to college and realize that the women and men they have become through parenting are better versions of themselves.

But I believe there are other parents who are just behaving less selfishly, squashing down their incessant selfish desires every day in order to better care for their families. If that is you, I need you to know that you are still a good parent. A good parent is someone who has selfish desires, but resists them in order to put the needs of their family first. A bad parent is someone who has selfish desires, but does not alter their pursuit of those desires in order to put the needs of their family first.

Whether you feel like being selfless or not, this is the truth:

A parent who behaves selflessly is selfless.

Whether the selfless behavior comes naturally, or if you have to stare into a mirror each morning and yell at yourself like a drill sergeant to tamp down your selfish desires, if you are actively turning away from the things that would bring you pleasure in order to better care for your spouse and children, you are a selfless person. I’m proud of you, and you should be too.

Justin Kellough