I refuse to feel guilty

In my book, motherhood=guilt. Actually, life in this modern world=guilt, but life in this modern world is too broad a topic for this blog.

I am trying hard NOT to feel guilty. I try to think other, more affirmational and warm and cozy things about myself instead, but sometimes it’s hard.

But there are some things I refuse to feel guilty about. Please, I’m not trying to start anything here – I am just really OVER these things.

1. I refuse to feel guilty about shopping at Walmart. There’s quite the brouhaha going on right now in my community about the possible opening of a Walmart up the road and I’m very familiar with all the arguments, pro and con. But it’s convenient to me, has what I need, and honestly, what is the difference between it and Target or any other “big box” store? If you refuse to shop at any chain and only shop local I’m completely there with you, but if you refuse to shop Walmart and then go and shop Target…well, I think you need to really think about what you’re doing. Me, I can only be on top of so many issues. This is not one of them.

2. I refuse to feel guilty about eating meat. I like meat. I happen to think humans are omnivores. Plus, since I’m gluten intolerant if I quit eating meat what could I eat? My mom and step-dad are vegetarian and I respect that but I’m not feeling bad about the fajitas I ate last night (minus the tortilla, of course).

3. I refuse to feel guilty about owning stock in Krispy Kreme. Poor, yes. Undervalued, yes. But guilty? PLEASE! A friend of mine told me I was being unethical since Krispy Kreme peddles transfats and trasfats are bad for you…

4. I refuse to feel guilty because I adopted my son. I have been spending A LOT of time in the past few weeks (please see my next few posts about my September blogging record) reading adoption-related blogs. Adoptee blogs, Adoptive parent blogs, and Birth mother blogs. I have also read quite a few anti-adoption blogs. I haven’t written about those yet because I’m not sure what I want to say about them…but let me tell you, some of them can make you feel pretty bad about being an adoptive parent. Some of them can convince you that there’s only one right way to adopt: that’s if you adopt a special needs child (never a baby) whose parents died and whose entire other biological family has disappeared from the planet. Oh, and that kid better be from your own country and he or she better not be white.

Obviously I am being facetious. Very much so. But I am REALLY TIRED of the ridiculous things I’ve been reading. There’s SO MUCH great stuff out there – please see my posts about the two birth mother blogs here and here that I so enjoyed reading. There are many many many many more where that came from. But if you get mired down in reading the negative stuff – the stuff written by people who only see the world from their own limited, painful perspective, you can get bogged down in their misery and start to feel really guilty about choices you’ve made.

And I refuse to do that.

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