listening made her happiness more important than mine

I am currently decorating – quite a large and time condensed project – and I have got an extraordinarily busy time at work due to colleagues’ illnesses. Therefore I had agreed with my daughters that we would need all hands on deck on the weekends to clear rooms, move boxes, clean up etc. My middle daughter asked to go to a party last weekend and my knee jerk reaction was to just remind her of the agreement and bury myself in work and carpet rolls again. she seemed rather withdrawn though, so I put down my stuff and listened. she then told me about the fact that as a rather scholary child she felt that there were not may others that shared her interests and even though she got invited to many parties this one was important to her as it was one where she felt she would be more understood rather than just having superficial fun. We talked a lot about this and I spontaneously gave her a day off from all household and decorating help taking on her share of the duties and clearing her room to let her go. I did not mind the extra hard work as I felt happier with her happiness than I would have with the extra time or progress for myself.