How do you deal with it?

Women, Ladies, Friends, Sisters!

I thought I would put this out there. Mother’s Guilt. Do any of you guys deal with this? It has been on my mind a lot lately and I know I can’t be the only one that struggles with it.

I recently started working full time. Now, this is new to me. With all of my four children I have been blessed to be a stay at home mom. My husband had been working in the natural gas industry and the jobs just started to get slower and slower. We made the decision to move back to Utah and start again here. My husband now has a great job and we feel extremely blessed… BUT, it doesn’t pay as much as we have been used to so I thought I would just try and see if I could help out. I found a wonderful job that I absolutely love, but the guilt of not being with my kids every day and especially my little 2 year old who is growing so fast has just been crushing me.

I started researching some articles and things to see how other moms work with this feeling and I found out that mothers’ guilt was not always a mother’s lot.  Mothers in Victorian England banished children to nursemaids before farming them off to boarding school at age five so they could continue on with their high-tea social lives. Acclaimed photographer Dorothea Lange paid foster families to look after her children so she could venture off on months-long photography expeditions.

After reading that I thought, well jeez, at least I haven’t done that! And the fact is, there is no one ‘right way’ when it comes to raising children. We all differ in our personalities, preferences, and circumstances. The choices that make us feel whole, healthy, and happy differ, as well.

In my short time working it has helped me to remember I am doing this for a reason and to list those reasons over and over again. A few might be that we love our jobs. We need the money. We don’t want to risk dropping out of a competitive field when new positions are scarce. We realize we’d be miserable as stay-at-home moms and would make our children unhappy. We want to set an example of a successful, independent wage-earner.

No matter what the reasons, it’s what life is now. It may feel like it will go on forever, but it won’t. The only constant thing is change.

I have learned to value the time I do get with my kids. I have found that we communicate better and we are happy when we spend time together. I have completely become way more organized than I have ever thought I could be. It’s strange how it seems your life is more put together when you have all these balls in the air demanding your time, but I am thankful for it. I have learned to prioritize the demands on my time. So I have a MOUNTAIN of laundry in my laundry room right now, but snuggling with my baby boy is WAY more important to me.

After all, it’s who we are for our children – happy, good-humored, and a role model for the values we believe in – that ultimately impacts them more than how closely we, or our homes, or our meals resemble the front cover of women’s magazines. The reality is that you do not have to be a perfect parent to be a great parent. 

You gotta stay away from those that don’t support you. I am literally the most blessed person when it comes to my support system. If I can’t be there it makes me feel so much better knowing mee mee or papa is there with them. It really does take a village to raise a family. To those who love to judge, and to all those who’ve felt the sting of a judgmental remarks or a scornful glance, I say “to each their own.” The vast majority of working mothers I encounter work incredibly hard to be the best parent they can, and that deserves encouragement, not criticism.

I repeat to myself all the time “Everything will be ok! It’s just a small moment!”

What have you guys done to battle the mom guilt?

Give me some suggestions and know if you are struggling with this you are NOT alone!

I got your back sista and we will share this together!

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