Owe No!

You don't owe me anything.

I just want to make that perfectly clear. You don't owe me anything.

Of course the flip side of that is I don't owe you anything either.

I can choose to give you something. You can choose to do something nice for me. And I hope you do choose to be kind and generous. But you don't owe that to anyone.

Now, I'm not above telling C about his birth story which starts at the 24 hours of labor that actually happened and progresses to about a week of solid hard time by the end of the story. But it's always teasing. He knows this. Because the "YOU DON'T OWE ME A FUCKING THING!" is said with much more passion. He knows that just because I'm his mother and he had shoulders the size of Buick doesn't mean he has to spend time with me now or ever.

I see this so often. Parents who use the "owe" mentality with their kids. No. Your kids don't owe you for anything. You chose to have kids. Everything you did raising them was your choice. I'm grateful that my parents made some of the choices they did raising me but that doesn't mean I'm indebted to them. I am always pleased when C chooses to spend time with us but he doesn't owe us that either.

If someone does something for you it's a nice thing to do, a polite thing to do, to be able to return the favor. But that's it. It's returning the favor. It's polite. It's not owed.

When we got out of the Navy and transitioned to civilian life we stayed with Brent's parents for awhile and then with my family. They didn't owe that to us. But I'm grateful they were able to help us out. And while we stayed with them we made sure to clean house, cook dinner, pay rent. Things to help out and make us not a burden because they didn't owe us the favor they were giving us and we wanted to make sure they weren't put out too much by it.

You make your choices in life. Don't let people tell you that you owe them something. You don't.

Again...you can choose to be kind and generous and helpful and all of those good things. And I believe they are good things. I try really hard to be kind. Which makes it sound like I'm awful and struggle with it, which isn't exactly right. But I do know how easy it is to get wrapped up in your day and ignore the person struggling with the door. Or the child who is wandering in Target. Or the person who has a lost look on their face and could use good directions. Which I will not be able to give without the use of my phone and maps, but I will at least make you feel better about being lost. I try to be kind. I try to notice these things. I try to help where I can. I try to give when I have the opportunity. But I don't owe that to anyone and the ones I help don't owe anything to me.

I feel like this whole, "you owe me" mentality is just trying to use guilt to power trip someone. Which makes me so mad. Don't do that. Don't try to guilt people into doing things for you. Don't try to put yourself above someone else, they OWE me. No they don't. You chose to give them what you gave them and now it's all done. End of story. The next piece starts a new story.

Owing is for business transactions. If you want someone to owe you something make sure you get the contract signed before you hand over the goods.

And if you don't want to have your personal interactions feel like business decisions then scrap the "owe me" mentality right now.

You don't owe me anything.

I don't owe you anything.

But you could bring me a brownie and I would be grateful.