The guilty party?

What is it about women and guilt? Why are we women going through life burdening ourselves with guilt and feeling we're not really getting anything right or doing anything well enough?

I've heard several of my friends recently say how they feel guilty all the time - guilty for not spending more time with their kids because they're at work; guilty for not working more hours or not working at all and feeling they're not contributing to the family coffers; guilty that they're reading 50 Shades of Grey rather than something cultured and mind improving; guilty they're often too knackered for sex, guilty that they're not getting to that exercise class.... and on it goes.

One even admitted that she feels guilty if she sits and has a cuppa and reads a magazine because 'there's always something around the house that needs doing but instead I'm sitting on my bum'.

Another said with a rueful laugh, 'we women are just born guilty, it comes with the territory.' Woah, stop right there. Where is all this guilt coming from and why do we women seem to be putting ourselves through it?

Most of us are doing the best we can, juggling busy lives, kids, work, money. Pack guilt on top of that and you're heading for a stressed out woman. Guilt is negative and who needs negativity in their life?

I realised I have my own guilt, mine centres on money, spending too much, being too indulgent, having expensive taste, not contributing financially as much as I could if I worked full time in an office instead of being lucky enough to be setting up my own business and doing something I love.

So what I'd like to know is why is it that men don't seem to suffer from guilt the way we do? The menfolk in my house have shown not one iota of guilt at commandeering the TV sets and sitting night after night in front of another bloody Euro 2012 football match. All normal life grinds to a halt as soon as that whistle blows. It's now got to the stage where I can walk into the sitting room, speak to them and they don't even hear me or notice I'm there, so absorbed are they.

Now if I announced that I would be hogging a sofa for hours on end, several nights in a row for almost a month watching interior design programmes, well, I'd never hear the end of it.

So I'm taking myself off to the South of France next week to shop, sit by the sea, eat, swim, sunbathe - and do I feel guilty? Not a bloody chance.