The Dreaded “Mom Guilt”: Does It Ever Go Away?

By
Tia Hutchinson
-
12

The Scenario

You’re sitting at the park one beautiful morning, watching your toddler, run, jump, flip and slide. It’s a gorgeous day, you have coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. It’s a peaceful moment, your child seems like the most happiest little one on the planet… just having the time of their life. They are content.

You’re watching, eyes moving back and forth from toddler to phone as you browse through social media watching everyone else get their days started. You laugh when they do something cute. In that moment, you should be thankful. I mean, this is the dream right? To be able to be there for our kids, to soak in these moments because, “they’re only little once,” right?

Yes, happiness and contentment “should have” been what you felt. However, that is not how you were feeling. Behind your seemingly mellow exterior, you were conflicted about so much. So many God-awful thoughts cemented themselves into your head, robbing you of what should have been such a peaceful moment. You’re feeling guilty, anxious, and worried… But why?

What are some of the things that eat us up as moms? What are the scenarios that are constantly playing out in our heads, that cause us to become so sick with constant worry? Let’s see, you’re probably feeling anxious because you’re internally mulling over your frustrating job search. The day before you’d received yet another politely worded “thanks but no thanks” job rejection letter. Your 7th one now in about 2 months. You’re anxious because even though you’ve been enjoying the fruits of being home with your children, you also know deep down that you long to get back to work.

Therefore, in an effort to feel better about yourself, you enrolled in an online professional development class. Just to keep your skills fresh, you thought. Now, you’re juggling the demands of the coursework (you underestimated them), the demands of your home, and the demands of parenting. Oh and let’s not forget that because you thought you were superwoman, you’ve also committed to volunteering at your older children’s school. You’ve also resolved to try and lose some more of your baby weight this year again. So, you’re dieting. A fancy word for cooking healthy foods, then packing it away in the back of your fridge to rot. You also remembered that your kid’s laundry hamper was overflowing.

But now you’re hungry, and frustrated, wondering what comes first. Homework, meal prep, more job applications, or laundry. Sounds familiar? You’re contemplating all of this because somewhere, somehow, someone once told you that what you were already doing wasn’t enough. As if the living, breathing, happy and contented little human running around in front of you isn’t enough for the right now.

You somehow feel wrong to be sitting on this park bench at 9:30AM on a Tuesday morning. How dare you enjoy such luxuries when you had so much else to do? 

 In that moment, somehow you’d forgotten.

mom guilt

The Perspective

You’d forgotten how hectic your schedule was when you did work full time. So quickly you’d forgotten how you had to be up at 5:30AM every day to get everyone dressed and dropped off so you could make it to your job 60 minutes away (some days, 90 with traffic). You’d forgotten how stressed you were because your husband had to be be away for work and you were alone with barely any help. You constantly felt guilty not spending more time with your kids. You felt guilty for feeding them nuked chicken nuggets and peas from a can. You felt guilty for sleeping in on weekends, leaving out dry cereal, just so they’d give you just one more hour of sleep. How frustrated you were because you wanted to go back to school, to learn a new skill and you just didn’t have the time. So quickly you’ve forgotten, that you once felt guilty for not being able to take your kids to the park like you wanted to!

The issues that are keeping you up at night presently were the same ones that caused you severe anxiety over missing out on them before. It’s important to realize that the grass isn’t always greener. 

The biggest takeaway from this story is to ask ourselves as moms, why are we so hard on ourselves? Why do we feel guilty for taking a break? Who taught us that as moms we couldn’t be okay with the right now?

Most importantly, when does it ever go away? When can we just okay with just sitting at the park with our kids and not have our heads be filled with thoughts of tomorrow night’s dinner, the weekend laundry, the school’s fundraiser or next week’s job applications?

mom guilt

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Awesome read! I can relate to almost everything you said… looking forward to seeing more from you!
    We as moms need to feel less guilt. This post helped me understand I’m not the only one who feels this way sometimes.

  4. Ahhh, I can’t relate…yet.. but there are definitely moments where I feel anxious and that feeling just doesn’t help matters at all. hahaha. Lovely read!

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