THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411041023
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: YOUR TURN
SOURCE: BY KERRI ALBERTSON, SPECIAL TO HRW
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
I WONDER when it starts. Do tiny female embryos begin life saying, ``No, really, I'm fine. You just go ahead,'' to the various items floating by in the amniotic fluid?
I've read that female babies cry sympathetically when they hear others in the hospital nursery start to wail. Is it because their reveries were interrupted by the noise or because they're trying to show support for each other? Or are they just frustrated that they can't climb out and fetch a bottle for the kid in the next cradle?
Whenever it begins, there seems to be an innate tendency, encouraged enthusiastically by the rest of the world (read that dad and the kids), for females, even in the modern Western world in the '90s, to feel they were born to serve, always putting others first or facing the guilt if they don't.
I certainly don't claim to be especially unselfish on the big issues. I insist that toilet seats be returned to the down position and that we stop to look in the antiques stores on our way home from vacation, or that we ask for directions when we get lost.
Yet I do notice in myself a weird sense of responsibility for the happiness of everyone in my line of sight, at my own expense if necessary. I'll admit some of it is a little crazy. What is that twinge of guilt I feel when something good comes on TV, and I am the only one to see it? Why do I feel compelled to run to the phone to make sure it doesn't belong just to me?
And watch me around the fried chicken. I feel no guilt about having the highly competent teenaged staff at the fast-food counter cook the stuff, but I'd never be the one to take a good part. Save me the wing. I'll just sit here and eat it in the dark.
Maybe it isn't just me. Traditionally female careers are service-oriented, with many of us clumped in jobs that pretty much require us to be selfless and uncomplaining. And how many of us become the office mom - remembering the birthdays, watering the plants, buttoning everyone's coats before we send co-workers home?
All this selflessness is wonderful when it springs genuinely from a person's nature. And it's great to be on the receiving end. But what if we all wake up one day and just don't feel like it? What about all of us who happen to have the biological parts and hormones but not the sweet, giving spirit? How about all of us selfish, grumpy, tired females who want the best piece of chicken? We get Part 2 of the female equation: guilt.
Watch me and count the apologies. I'm sorry about the weather, the traffic, the cover charge, that I didn't keep you from making the mistake, that I didn't know what you were thinking. And if you tell me I apologize too much, well, I'm sorry about that, too.
Am I the only one who feels this way? Can I start a new anti-selflessness movement? We could revolt. Refuse to be put on hold. Just say no to sending those sappy greeting cards with bad poetry written in flowing script. Strike the phrase ``Oh that's all right'' from our vocabularies. Let's do it. Let's declare Monday to be a day of celebration: a National Day of Maternal Absolution.
Meet me for lunch. We'll order all white meat.
- MEMO: Kerri Albertson is a resident of Chesapeake. by CNB