The Privilege of Self Care
Last month, Sarah Jessica Parker was interviewed for Marie Claire’s Beauty Around the Clock. In the article, she was quoted as saying: “I don’t like to talk about self care days because I don’t think they’re fair to the millions and millions of women who are working in this country and globally. I think the concept of self care makes people feel terrible and lousy and isolated that they can’t afford access or even dream of self care. Nobody wants to hear that some well to do, well-paid actress is having a self care day.”
I have always found Sarah Jessica Parker to be intelligent, thoughtful, and humble. She seems to be one of a small group of celebrities who have managed to obtain a tremendous amount of success while remaining unaffected and down to earth.
But this statement really blew me away because to be perfectly honest, the idea that certain aspects of self care are limited to the wealthy and the privileged is not a concept I had ever seriously considered. I mean, of course I realized that expensive laser treatments and fancy spa days are out of reach for most of us working schleps, but I still believed that anyone could access at least some form of self care, such as journaling or going on a walk with a friend. After all, these things don’t cost any money, right?
However, if you consider that for most of us our time is our most valuable resource, then even seemingly free self care activities can suddenly become very expensive. When time is money, every minute counts.
Ironically, the people who are likely to benefit most from self care are often the ones least likely to engage in it. Women living under the poverty line, women raising children on a single minimum wage income, and women suffering from mental health disorders are highly unlikely to engage in self care activities. When you are worried about paying your rent, getting a pedicure isn’t typically a priority.
In addition to lacking the financial resources to pursue self care, there are other obstacles as well, including lack of accessibility to reliable transportation or the absence of a partner to provide child care. For many women, even finding ten minutes a day to read a book or take a bubble bath is completely unrealistic. For these women, the goal is simply survival as opposed to happiness or wellness.
And to Sarah Jessica Parker’s point, not only can talking about self care make some people feel unworthy, it can be downright offensive. Does anyone really want to hear Gwenyth Paltrow talk about another overpriced vaginal tightening cream made of crushed pearls and the blood of angels? And although Gwenyth could afford to eat caviar three meals a day, she stated in a recent interview that the mainstay of her diet is bone broth and the principles of intermittent fasting. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Besides, my vagina is already extremely tight.
That being said, I strongly believe in taking care of myself and pursuing activities that allow me to rest and recharge. Let’s face it, who doesn’t love a good massage or girls night out? But where do we draw the line? Is reading this week’s copy of People magazine from cover to cover acceptable to post on social media but not pictures from your recent weeklong yoga retreat? I guess it largely depends on your target audience and your intentions behind the post.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and the only thing I have established for sure is that there are no easy answers. However, as a person who has recently launched a blog about the pursuit of happiness and wellness, I want to acknowledge that the platform of self care is at best a sensitive topic, and at worst, a potentially harmful one.
As always, I’ll rely on readers like you to keep me grounded. Furthermore, I hope that you will feel comfortable speaking out if any of my happiness initiatives or blog posts leave you feeling alienated rather than empowered.
