Isn’t motherhood itself an act of selflessness? You give your body over to the creation of another being. Even if your child is adopted, your emotions are tied up so tightly with your child that you simply cannot help but understand the needs of others in the world. Right? Well, no.

Apparently, common consideration for others is disappearing fast, and parents are not immune — even in situations when you’d think they’d be on their best behavior.

I spent a recent weekend at a group camp-out with more than 100 Girl Scouts. Even in a group that exists to teach good moral values and leadership to children, you can observe the worst, I’m sorry to say. One of the Girl Scout laws is to be “considerate and caring.” We try to teach girls to think of others. But that’s hard to do when mothers who have come along as chaperones have no consideration for anyone but themselves.

One mother brought a television set — a television set! — to camp and wanted to leave it on all night in a cabin where several other adults were sleeping. Why? Because she said she cannot sleep without the television noise. Apparently she did not realize that it is extremely rude to insist upon keeping others awake so that you can sleep. Not to mention that a television set has no place at a camp-out.

I observed another mother pushing a young teen out of the way during an activity that the teen was teaching to younger girls, so that the mother could “show” her daughter what to do, although the older girl was in the process of doing just that. You couldn’t miss the surprise and frustration on the faces of both the older and younger girls as the mother proceeded to do the entire activity for her child.

I had to listen to one mother try to explain why she needed to take 12 rolls of toilet paper to her cabin site, while the restroom the entire camp was using during a campfire was completely out.

What do children learn from this kind of behavior? Well, they don’t do well at sharing or listening, that’s for sure. Several kids snatched all of the best beads and hid them from others at the bracelet craft. And it was nearly impossible to get the group to stop talking while important information was being imparted.

In truth, most of the children were perfectly well-behaved and many of the moms went far beyond what was asked of them. But I was astounded by the bad behavior of the few.

It made me think: Everyone needs to rein in their “me first” behavior, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because we need to teach our kids to be considerate.

Here’s hoping everyone takes a moment to pause and reflect: “How can I be more considerate of others, and show my children to do the same?”