(Originally published on Motherless Mom, June 27, 2019)
Mom Guilt is the not-so-secret secret that modern moms harbor. We feel it to varying degrees; Some of us splash in its puddles every now and again and the rest of us dive into the deep-end and stay in until we prune, but I’d guess every single mother out there has tasted #MomGuilt before.
Moms that stay home feel it as we wonder if we are setting a bad example for our children or not contributing to the family income as much as we should, and moms that work outside the home feel it as we wonder if we are missing important childhood moments and connections. No one is immune as we carefully tailor our social media feeds to include photos of our children playing joyfully at the park or finger-painting at the kitchen table as these same offspring scream bloody murder from the next room over whose turn it is to wield the remote control. “Look!” we say. “Look at how happy everyone is. I’m a good mother… right?”
Mom Guilt can apply to any person that is in the primary caregiver role, but for simplicity’s sake, we will just refer to it as Mom Guilt, as the grand majority of those that experience this are called “mom.”
Modern Moms are lucky. We have the ability to Google “how to quickly bring down a temperature” or “yellow diarrhea in a 5-year-old” at 2am and access information from health organizations and parent communities all around the world. This information-and-connection-on-demand culture is both a blessing and a curse. Not only are we able to access important information in an instant, we are also able to connect and compare ourselves to parents all around the world, in real time.
Take social media, for example. We know we all put our highlight reels on social media, but it doesn’t stop this thief of joy from barging in to our brain as we compare our parenting journey to that one person you worked with briefly a decade ago that you probably wouldn’t even recognize if you passed on the street tomorrow. “Her preschooler is frickin’ writing code over there? Are you kidding me?” we think, as we watch our preschooler and her big sister laugh uproariously as they make their dolls fart in each other’s faces.
Then there’s that accessibility of information which is so convenient in times of emergency. It is lifesaving, no doubt, to be able to access the correct first-aid after a snake bite, but it is life-stifling to spend our day falling down the rabbit hole of “how I’ve messed my preschooler up already” as we read article after article about structural brain changes and emotional regulation issues that result from this parenting style or that parenting style and wouldn’t you just know it, our parenting style is responsible for this or that negative outcome, too.
Particularly for those of us who know we’ve had a tough start on this parenting journey, this knowledge can drive us a bit mad with guilt.
For example, I had severe postpartum mood disorders including rage, anxiety, and OCD. I spent the first two years of my oldest daughter’s life as a full-on rage monster with goofy OCD rituals meant to abate my anxiety, like barricading the doors in my home every single night (in addition to setting the alarm system) and spraying down every surface of our home with a vinegar/essential oil spray at the end of every single day. Her early years were rough, there is no doubt about that. She has gone through therapy for her anxiety and PTSD from her experiences with me, and let me assure you that the guilt I feel around this is astronomical.
As a matter of fact, I type this as I sit beside her bed. About 20 minutes after bedtime this evening, she trotted out to my desk and asked me to come back and sit beside her while she falls asleep. Of course, I said yes. How could I deny her this simple comfort?
On the surface, this doesn’t seem like an overreaction at all, but the emotions on my end are. I am always trying to make up for the past with her and feel I am always falling short. Until I can find a time machine somewhere and go back and change our past, I will probably always carry this guilt with me.
My husband, on the other hand? Not affected at all. Why? Because I am the “designated worrier” in our family, a role that is most often taken by moms rather than dads. I’m the one that is out in the trenches with our two girls, day in and day out. I’m the one scheduling and schlepping us about to doctors visits, dance rehearsals, speech therapy, gymnastics, dentist appointments, playdates, and storytime at the library. I’m the one that is there when the doctor is asking about milestones that should be met by this specific age, and when the dentist is asking if they really floss *every* night, and when my kids seem to be the only two kids at storytime that can’t keep frickin’ still! I’m the one on the ClassDojo app with my kid’s teacher, texting back and forth about why she might have dug a hole in the bus seat on the field trip and then lied when asked about it. I’m the one that has to decide over the phone if the stomachache my kid has is her anxiety or is she really about to puke- I don’t always get this one right. I’m the one that scrolls through the dozens of parenting groups I’m a part of on social media, clicking on articles that tell me simultaneously how it is that I’ve already messed my kids up and how I can hopefully avoid doing more of that.
I jest a bit here as I talk about the parenting groups I’m a part of, because I do place huge value on having an online community of parents to network and share information with. It has been invaluable to have these resources available to me, especially as I’ve needed the wisdom of others that have walked similar paths before me. My mother didn’t have these sorts of resources, but she also didn’t have this sort of pressure coming at her from all sides. I’m pretty sure her parenting goal was to see that we all survived and were relatively happy while doing so, and she hit that goal with flying colors! I can’t imagine my mom back in 1991 fretting about her 6-year-old being over-scheduled or under-scheduled, over-stimulated or under-stimulated, having read the appropriate minimum of 20 minutes each day, etc.
Parenting expectations have shifted, for sure. One of my fave Mom-heros, Bunmi Laditan says it best:
Don’t get me wrong here! I’m grateful for the wealth of information, research, and guidance that exists for parents like myself that want to have this information as we make choices for our families. I wouldn’t rather be in the dark here and I do not believe ignorance is bliss. Not for me, anyway. It’s not the information I have access to, it’s the pressure I put on myself related to it that is the problem.
When it comes down to it, I know this #MomGuilt is ubiquitous. I know that it doesn’t matter if we stay at home with our kids or go back to work before we’ve stopped bleeding, if we breastfeed or bottle-feed, or if we use RIE or AP style of parenting: whatever the choices we make for our children, I bet that most thoughtful, intelligent, loving mothers will agree that we probably all worry too damn much. We all want what’s best for our kids and worry that we’re dicking it up in one way or another.
I think we should try to use the knowledge that this concern about how we’re doing is probably the best proof we will get that we are all doing a rockstar job at this mom-gig; would a ‘crappy’ mom even care?
Maybe it can displace some of that #MomGuilt.