'Selfish' time?!

Agree with so much of the above. Great post Quattro.
So maintaining a life and interest is selfish? Looking beyond your immediate experiences? But as you say reading with children is necessary - how will we know what to read with them if we don't read?? At the weekend, DD (3.11) has a long bath and I read whilst sitting in the bathroom -in between chatting and playing, then I have a bath whilst she plays, chats, and reads - well, looks at - her books. Is this selfish? It's a nice Saturday morning for us and one I think is good parenting.

It's funny, I love reading. And I love reading in the bath too. And cookery books. But I have never read cookery books in the bath. Perhaps I should start?

I regard reading and having baths as fairly essential to my life, and when I am reading in the bath I'm definitely not available for anything/anyone else. I don't think that's selfish though, and if it is I don't care .

you're probably just not wearing the right low-cut satin dressing gown.
you don't have to actually cook anything proper to be Nigella, just pour some cream and sugar and chocolate into a pan and stir it over a low heat, dipping your fingers in and licking them suggestively from time to time.

Don't make me do Nigella! I can barely do anything in the kitchen without burning myself or dropping everything, letalone pouting at the same time.

LOL.
Nigella? cooking and being sexy in one convenient package.

Oh. That makes me want to start reading cookery books.

Ha HB!

No, it will count as taking the piss.

aha, I have an idea. Suppose I were to read dh's boring-as-hell turgid military history stuff about aeroplanes and shit, and tell him quite explicitly I am doing so purely to make myself a more interesting conversational partner for him and thus a better wife? could that count as unselfish?

you should be right Earwicga, but I fear in my house my cookery books count as 'another one of dw's little obsessions' and would therefore come into the selfish category . Likewise books about children.
we have some of the 'how to be really good at having sex' books but I have never read them. Shall pretend to do so for investigative purposes.

(of course, Mumsnetting definitely counts as selfish, but in actual fact an awful lot of my time on here is spend actually learning about how to be good at looking after children.)

sethstarkaddersmum - Books on how to improve ourselves sexually for men would definately NOT be considered selfish. Or recipe books obviously.

yeah but not chicklit. I wonder which books would count as less selfish? I'm still reading The Feminine Mystique at the moment and I bet that would count as selfish too....

We are probably also selfish if we don't read books, since we will be failing to model for our children a proper appreciation of literature. The path of maternal righteousness is infinitely thin.

How many ways are there to define women as selfish?

Women are selfish if they go out to work (neglecting their children) and selfish if they stay at home (neglecting their financial responsibilities). They are selfish for going out with their friends (neglecting their children and their financial responsibilities). They are selfish in bed (wanting the occasional orgasm). Now, I find, they are selfish for reading a book.

Fortunately I've never ever bought any product by Radox. Because in a world where I find I cannot avoid being selfish, that appears to be my one act of selflessness, no?

But I see selfishness and selflessness as opposite ends of a dimension really. Both are too extreme to be really desirable. I think if we downplay 'selfish' to mean stealing an hour with a book, then we are changing its meaning. I do agree about the selfless thing though. MN appears to be riddled with it ATM.

I don't like reading in the bath. I do like reading in bed, though. For hours.

And now I am torn because I would like to talk about selfishness without guilt, except that ends up justifying all sorts of horrid things and voting Tory .

I think it is the required selflessness that is expected of Good Mothers that needs to be repudiated. Good Mothers don't finish a book because they don't have time. (They do, however, finish book after book with their children.) They have No Time For Themselves. If they do, this is Suspect.

But guilty in a nice way though perhaps? And I use the word nice in full knowledge of its blandness. A frisson of guilt, rather than breast beating? Tame.

...especially in the bath.

Reading while eating cake, now, that is quite toe-curlingly blissful.

But it isn't selfish to do stuff you want to do, any more than it is naughty to eat a cake. All that the word selfish does is add the idea that you ought to feel guilty about doing it.

And god knows, it would take something a bloody lot nicer and more expensive than Radox to make me feel guilty about reading a book in the bath.

Hmmm, without giving any credibility whatsoever to this wretched Radox wossname (and which book/s, pray, are on offer? I bet it's nothing too stretching for our pretty little brains) I think most mothers aren't selfish enough, frankly. We are expected to be selfless Pelicans, reiterating those tired cliches of how we haven't oh dear finished a book since little Archie was born six years ago.

I am a pretty terrible mother but I have at least managed quite a few books during my time in the parental slammer.

So the word 'selfish' is going the way of the word 'naughty' then? Cake is 'naughty', reading is 'selfish'. Good Lord.

MI, yes: I like the idea of reading as hungry and primal and pleasurable. But none of that needs to imply selfish. Can't think why they chose that word, except for the obvious reason that they were embarrassed by the cliche of 'Me time' and couldn't be bothered to think hard enough to find a better alternative to replace it.