It’s supposed to be the other way around.

Last week my friend Jess, the woman behind Diary of a Mom, shared that she’d been invited to a friend’s house in the tropics.

She’s a mom and she’s married and she lives in the Boston area, and the idea of visiting a friend’s tropical home in the middle of January sounded pretty awesome.

But she was wavering.

She wanted to go, but she was having a little bit of a hard time justifying going.

She had airline points she could use, so money wasn’t even an excuse she could use to not go.

Finally her husband – her really amazing and extremely supportive husband – said to her, “You need this.”

And so, she went.

I think moms do this all the time.

We feel like we need to have a reason to do something fun.

A reason other than just plain old wanting to go.

My daughter was invited to go on a little trip to Rhode Island for a few days with a friend of hers last summer.

Money wasn’t an issue – it wasn’t going to cost me anything.

I never once thought to myself, does she need to go?

Has she earned it?

Does she deserve it?

Has she worked hard enough? Has she burned herself out sufficiently to warrant a break?

Will her brothers and sisters get upset if they can’t also go?

My only question to her when she asked me if she could go was,

Do you want to go?

Her answer was yes.

And my response was, Okay, then you should go!

And that was it.

I think most of us would do the same thing if our kids had an opportunity to do something fun.

We’d happily let them.

But then when the tables are turned and it’s us, the rules are usually different.

You might even think the rules are not quite the same for Jess and say something like

Well, it’s easier for her because her husband is supportive and they have a really balanced and healthy relationship – a true partnership – and they share the parenting load and he’s been been a very involved parent from the beginning, so taking off on a spontaneous trip is not the same for her as it is for me.

It’s true that Jess and her husband have a “goals” marriage. They love each other and they like each other and they really do work so well as a team.

Then you might argue that it’s also not the same for her because her husband was a stay at home dad for many years so she can go away and not spend the entire time she’s gone stressing about if the kids are okay.

But even with all that, even with a healthy marriage, even with a supportive, involved, and extremely hands-on husband (who also does all of the cooking) Jess still had serious reservations about doing this for herself.

I think most of us can relate.

And I think most of us need a reminder.

We can do things simply because we want to.

We don’t have to need them in order to do them.

We aren’t supposed to deplete ourselves to the point of physical and mental exhaustion in order to get a break.

It’s supposed to be the other way around.

We are supposed to give ourselves breaks so we don’t reach the point of physical and mental exhaustion.

Even if we have kids.

ESPECIALLY IF WE HAVE KIDS!

We don’t have to check off a bunch of boxes, no matter who we are, to do the things we like.

We don’t need to justify doing things for pleasure.

We wouldn’t deny our kids fun, spontaneous opportunities.

So let’s set an example for our kids, and especially our daughters, and stop doing that very same thing to ourselves.