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Motherhood: The Ultimate All-Expense-Paid Guilt Trip!

by Kimberly S. Vanderbrook

For Mother’s Day

This is a Mother-Daughter story, one of sacrifice and glory.
A baby born with girlie charms is nestled in her Mother’s arms.
On toddler feet she races out to find out what the world’s about.
Ponytails and boys with bugs, she still returns for Mama’s hugs.
Teenage years, a testing time. Mother’s there to draw the line.
Daughter’s grown, and Mothers know to love her, guide her, let her go.
A grandchild’s born with girlie charms. She’s nestled in her Grandma’s arms.
Time swirls by with joy and tears. Loss, renewal, comfort, fears.
Mother, Daughter hand in hand. Now Daughter’s helping Mom to stand.
The day will come, and Daughters know to love her, guide her, let her go.
How blessed this Mother-Daughter pair to have had each other’s lives to share.
- by Cheryl Blaise

Okay. I ate Brie while pregnant. And sushi. And I drank wine and coffee. I have yet to attend a parents’ social at my daughter’s school. My house is often messy. We haven’t made it to church in a month. And sometimes my one-year-old subsists for days on only bananas. Some nights we forget to brush teeth. I yell. And last night I rushed through our goodnight routine so I could zone out and watch “Lost” while perusing the new Pottery Barn Catalog. I am a terrible mother.

Well, not really. But sometimes I feel that way. I do lots of things right, but when something goes wrong, I can’t seem to stop beating myself up for it. Guilt seems to be hardwired into us mothers—an intrinsic marking along with the stretch marks, c-section scars and snotty tee shirts that are the external badges of motherhood. Almost from the moment we find out we are expecting, we are barraged with reasons to feel guilty. Combine this with our children’s insatiable appetite for love and compassion and our limited human patience and it’s a recipe for guilt. There’s lots of pressure to “do things right” for our children, even when the right thing is relative to different families and situations.

Lately, the media has pitted stay-at-home moms against working moms, polarizing both positions. Sure, there’s some criticism of each, but each choice represents incredible sacrifice. Working moms struggle with guilt for being away from their children all day. Stay-at-home moms who left work to stay home feel guilty for not spending every minute at home interacting with and enriching their children. It’s easy to forget that it’s the overall picture, not every little detail, that makes up good parenting.

We all love our children and want desperately to give them the best life that we can, but we need to find a way to do this without buying into the guilt that says we are falling short in some way. Women’s high expectations of themselves and from others to be a fantastic wife, friend, daughter, mother and worker and look fabulous doing it while keeping a stylish and tidy home are unrealistic and harmful. How can we raise our children to judge themselves and others less harshly when we judge ourselves in this way?

Maybe guilt can be a good thing if we can let go of the superficial guilt and judgments by others and use our guilty feelings to get back in touch with what really matters. I have taken to asking myself regularly, “Will this matter in five minutes? Five days? Five years?” And most of the time the answer is, “No.” No, it won’t matter that my child wants to wear flip-flops to the library in December. It won’t matter that I bought the cookies for the bake sale. And it certainly won’t matter that the clean laundry has been sitting on the couch for two days waiting for me to fold it.

By letting go of my guilt, I get to experience my kids more fully. I only get the chance to be their mother once, and I want to enjoy it! So instead of folding laundry, I took my kids out in the rainstorm to splash in the puddles and mud, and yesterday I put aside work to build a fairy house in the front yard with my four- year-old. I guess I realized that I am never going to be perfect at this mothering thing. And that’s okay. Maybe it’s enough just to be the mother that I am and trust that she is exactly who my kids need her to be.

Five ways to stop
Mother Guilt

Take time for yourself: We all know the saying “If mama’s not happy, no one’s happy!” So true. You will be a better mom if you take time to engage your own interests and connect with other moms. If you can’t find a mom’s group that suits you, form your own. A group of friends and I try to meet monthly at my house for drinks. No makeup required and stretch pants are encouraged! Even moms have to take a break before they reach the breaking point.

Ask yourself, “Does it really matter?” You’ll be surprised how often we feel guilty for things that in the long run are no big deal. So what if you had to stop at Walgreen’s to buy Valentines on the way to school because you forgot! (Not that I actually had to, of course!) It doesn’t really matter!

Count your blessings! A sense of gratitude for what we have and who we are goes a long way to alleviate guilty feelings. We are all blessed with gifts unique to us. Some of us can cook epicurean feasts from scratch and others can kick a soccer ball with Beckham-like accuracy. Celebrate the gifts that you bring to your children, whatever they may be.

Forgo the hype. There are dozens of parenting magazines out there trying to tell us the kind of mother we should be. Feeling guilty over idealized and unrealistic visions of parenting only gets in the way of our natural parenting instincts. Feeding your child 100-percent-organic foods, teaching him his colors by age two or buying the latest baby devices doesn’t make you a better parent. Your loving attention does.

Ask yourself, “Is the guilt useful?” If a guilty feeling hangs around, ask yourself if it is prompting you to make a change. If you feel guilty for not playing enough with your children, set a timer for 15 minutes a few times a day and focus on them. If you can’t change what’s making you feel guilty, let it go!

We moms are more alike than we think. Our lives may play out in different kitchens and living rooms, but we struggle with the same problems. I asked some mothers to share what they feel guilty about. Their answers made me realize that motherhood is perhaps the only situation where it’s actually comforting to hear someone say, “I know exactly how you feel.” It’s like balm for the mother’s soul.

“I feel guilty for wanting to be ME sometimes. I want my job back as a lawyer. But then again, I couldn’t dream of leaving my little girl. It’s a Catch 22! I feel guilty for not being 100 percent satisfied being a stay-at-home mom. I miss wearing my lawyer dress-up clothes and talking with other lawyers and feeling important and I feel guilty about missing those things when I have the best job in the world as a mom. I’m the only one who can be her mother. Shouldn’t that make me feel important—that no one else can be her mother but me?

“I feel guilty for feeling resentment when vacations are filled with nap times and entertaining the baby. Vacations used to be a vacation AWAY from the everyday responsibility, but right now it’s just a change of venue.”
-Catherine, stay-at-home mom
of one, age twelve months.

“Last night, my four-year-old was constantly talking to me while I was watching ‘American Idol.’ Finally, I shushed him in such a nasty way that he burst into tears. I felt terrible, because I really didn’t care about the show. And besides, I was Tivoing it in the other room and could have watched it later.”
-Bridget, mom of two,
ages four and two.

“I am forever feeling guilty. Being a single mother, I am spread entirely too thin. I have guilt for not spending enough quality time with the kids. Guilt for not being able to be more involved in their school. Guilt for wanting ME time. Guilt because I enjoy work now as I used to enjoy motherhood. Guilt because I long for their bedtime, so the house is mine again. Guilt because I absolutely love it when they are over at a friend’s house. It’s nothing but guilt, guilt, because I need peace, cleanliness and sanity to be able to function. Raising three kids by myself, running a business by myself and running a household by myself is hard.”
-Abby, single working mom
of three, ages seven, five and four.

“Ha, ha. Everything makes me feel guilty. Hmm, let me see. Not spending enough time with my second child—I feel as if she doesn’t get the same attention.

“Working too much. Wanting to send my kids to bed just so I can relax and watch a little television. And I make my kids eat cereal for breakfast when my mom cooked breakfast every morning.”
-Myra, working mom of two,
ages five and three.