I don't know if this is what was implied - but my wife and I have always believed strongly that you have to maintain the "hub" that is your relationship in order for the bigger picture - the family - to thrive.
My kids (now 12 and 15, goddamit!) are 100% the entirety of my life: the beginning, middle and end. They're the reason my wife and I work for ourselves, the reason we don't work all the time, the reason we haven't grown our business even though we could have. We want to be here for them in the tiny period of time we have them at home, and who cares if we end up financially poorer because of it - our lives are infinitely richer with this time we have as a family together.
But.
Some parents become parents and let their kids dominate. And I don't mean in a disciplinary way, I mean that the kids - especially when tiny - take over the adults lives too. This was obvious for us in the parents that let their kids stay up until whatever time, had no routine, let their kids sleep in their bed, never got out as a couple, etc etc.
The point I'm making is that having kids is THE single hardest thing you'll ever do. It's also THE BEST thing you'll ever do, but it's the hardest. And if you don't take care of you and your partner - by making time to be together, making time to be a couple and not parents, making time to be in love and connected and all those things you did before being a parent - then the whole thing is likely to fall apart.
Whether this is what the poster meant as "selfish" I don't know, but being aware of yourself, your partner, and your relationship in this rollercoaster of a ride seems to me to be an incredibly good thing.
My kids (now 12 and 15, goddamit!) are 100% the entirety of my life: the beginning, middle and end. They're the reason my wife and I work for ourselves, the reason we don't work all the time, the reason we haven't grown our business even though we could have. We want to be here for them in the tiny period of time we have them at home, and who cares if we end up financially poorer because of it - our lives are infinitely richer with this time we have as a family together.
But.
Some parents become parents and let their kids dominate. And I don't mean in a disciplinary way, I mean that the kids - especially when tiny - take over the adults lives too. This was obvious for us in the parents that let their kids stay up until whatever time, had no routine, let their kids sleep in their bed, never got out as a couple, etc etc.
The point I'm making is that having kids is THE single hardest thing you'll ever do. It's also THE BEST thing you'll ever do, but it's the hardest. And if you don't take care of you and your partner - by making time to be together, making time to be a couple and not parents, making time to be in love and connected and all those things you did before being a parent - then the whole thing is likely to fall apart.
Whether this is what the poster meant as "selfish" I don't know, but being aware of yourself, your partner, and your relationship in this rollercoaster of a ride seems to me to be an incredibly good thing.