Back in 1988, black, lesbian feminist, Audre Lorde, while fighting against cancer and the political status quo, wrote “caring for myself is not an act of self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare”.

Today, self care seems to have become quite a common thing to hear, or read. In a world where stress levels are high and we can end up putting our health at risk as we put our needs aside, it makes sense to have reminders that we have to look after ourselves a little, but at what point does self care become self centred?

We're in a time where we are clamouring for acceptance. People should be allowed to be who they are and their preferences accepted. Yet when it comes to family or communal activities, this can mean that others need to go out of the way to cater for one person. Food is a probably the most obvious example here, because meal times are a bonding time, so it's easiest if everyone eats the same thing. If you have someone who really can't eat certain things, because of intolerances or allergies, thenthe majority of people are happy to accommodate. However, when it’s just someone being picky, then it can breed resentment that other people keep missing out on something for the sake of one person.

As an example, I recently heard an anecdote from a friend about a family she invited over for dinner. The mother was very insistent that they were vegetarian, so my friend went to great lengths to provide a lovely vegetarian meal for them. Then while they were eating the parents told them how they sometimes make an exception and eat burgers at McDonald's if they're out. My friend was offended that they would make an exception there, but wouldn't for a dinner invite from a friend. The outcome was that she didn't invite them over again (although it seems that wasn't the only way in which they offended her).

If someone isn't willing to accommodate for others when it comes to their own personal preferences, then at what point do the others turn around and say they aren't going to continue to accommodate for them all the time? To truly have the freedom to do just as you want, whenever you want, you need to be living alone, but then you forgo the benefits of the family or community, which isn't easy for most. You do, of course, get those who are happier to segregate themselves from people entirely and live as hermits, but the majority of us are social creatures.

I was recently reading an article that suggested self care should become community care and I can see where the author is coming from. Within a family, or community, we often need to make compromises, maybe joining in with activities we don't necessarily enjoy as much as other activities, in order to keep the family connections strong. Sometimes there are things that we may choose to do alone or with others outside of the family, because we enjoy them, but our family members don't. Self care isn't a bad thing per se. If you're someone who finds it hard to say no to people, then learning to say it occasionally is probably a good idea, but what when it reaches a point when you're saying no to everything you don't want to do and only joining in with others if it's something you do want to do? Then they're the ones making compromises all the time for your sake and at some point that's going to lead to resentment.

When you're sharing a household with others, not doing things you don't like can cause friction and resentment if it ends up with others taking up the workload that one refuses to do. There can be the temptation to only clean your own mess, because why should you clean up the mess of others if they can't be bothered to clean up after themselves? However, this doesn't take into account that there will always be communal messes and jobs directly attributed to no single person. In a household where the majority only clean up the mess they've created, it's often the same person who ends up also cleaning up the communal messes, like floors, because you can't exactly figure out which bit of dirt each person traipsed into the house.

One could, in theory, each live separate lives in a house, each cooking their own meals and cleaning their own dishes, doing their own laundry separately, but this is likely to cause confrontation when people start to get in each other’s way or one decides the other should be cleaning as they cook, while the other prefers to clean after they cook. This way of doing things might also be suitable for one, but the others might prefer to work together and share workloads. After all, chores are often much easier to get through with the company of others. However, if they did this, then the solo one could end up feeling left out or excluded.

So should it be self care or community care?

I've often heard it said that if someone is running a charity, everything should be donated and they shouldn't take a wage out of it. Yet often those who do charity work are poorer people who have an understanding of what it is like to be in the position of needing charity and running a charity can be a full time commitment. So how would they feed themselves or take care of their basic needs if they didn't take some sort of wage from the donations? Then how would they continue to help others if they couldn't help themselves first? I'm not talking about those huge charities where you hear about the CEOs taking a luxury living wage from the donations that flood in, I'm talking about those charities on the ground who do the actual footwork and are in the thick of it.

Let's be honest, if we don't look after ourselves, we can't look after others very well either. Many mothers probably know all to well what it's like to experience burnout. Sometimes we have to put our own needs first, as long as it isn't to the detriment of the family. Really, a balance needs to be found; a give and take. When we go to one extreme or the other it will end up being to the detriment of both ourselves and the community or family.