Mom Guilt

"Mom Guilt" Almost everyone has felt it at some time.  But why? Listen to hear what this guilt is all about and how we can ease up on ourselves and eachother. 

Show notes
Psych Central Definition of Mom Guilt

"The End of Mom Guilt"

Mom and Dad Guilt

 
Our First Book Club Episode is Next Month with "The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children will be Glad that You Did) by Philippa Perry. *

 
 
*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, but only share recommendations for books I truly believe in.  

The music you here at the start of this and every episode was created by the "Wonderful" Obediya Jones-Darrell. You can check out his work here.

Transcript

0:28

This episode is all about mom guilt. When we're thinking about mom guilt, I wanted to think first about what is guilt. So I did a very quick Google search, and from Miriam Webster, I found the definition of guilt being feelings of deserving blame, especially for imagine defenses or from a sense of inadequacy. And then I took a step back and, or a step forward, let's say, and looked for a definition of mom guilt. And I found a definition I liked on a website called Psych Central. I'll link it in the show notes. And the definition there came from licensed clinical psychologist, Ellen Coyer, who explained ultimately it stems from worries about all the shoulds. Parents are bombarded with, and anxiety about making the best parenting choices. And she adds that. We're constantly being given messages about what we should be doing or what choices we should be making from. Social comparisons, other parents, nonstop external input from parenting, blogs and podcasts, parenting experts, and social media. These feelings occur when parents feel like they aren't meeting their child's needs or fulfilling their roles as quote unquote, good mom. I couldn't find any great statistics on how many moms experience Mom guilt, though I found lots of surveys that showed anywhere from 60% to over 90%. I found one Pew survey that found that 56% of women find that it's really difficult to balance work and home, and they actually found similar rates for men, and we'll get back to that later. As for my own biases, which I always like to check in with on these episodes, I know that I deal with mom guilt every day if you don't know me, and it's turning out that people that don't know me are listening to this podcast, which is really cool. Hi. also hi to the people I do know. but if you don't know me, I definitely live with anxiety. I've lived with anxiety and managing it quite well at the moment, but I've lived with it for definitely as long as my life as I can remember. and anxiety and guilt are often very closely linked. I also know I love my kids. That hopefully goes without saying, but I also love my. I love my business. I love working with my clients. I love making this podcast. I also know that I grew up with a good deal of guilt for all sorts of things coming from my society, coming from how I was raised. So I know I definitely feel guilty when I am working very hard, especially when I'm doing something that maybe has like more long-term goals. But is it instantly making cash money, or when I'm doing anything that is a self-care activity, like when my kids are at school in daycare and maybe that's when I go and get my hair cut or I exercise for a little bit. So this is a topic that's really personal to me. I was very excited to dive in on this topic. Where does mom guilt come? So hopefully it doesn't come from this podcast. We heard that list before. They mentioned podcasts, but it can definitely come from podcast blogs, social media, comparing ourselves to other parents, parents that we know. Maybe we see someone at school pick up or on the playground, and often from parents we don't know. Maybe we just see them from a distance or again, social media. Parenting choices and judgment. Whether it's judgment we're receiving or we feel like we're receiving from our peers, from our family, from our health providers. This can be around how we feed our babies. We did an episode on formula feeding and on breastfeeding. This can be on how our babies sleep, where our babies sleep. A big aspect of the term mom. Guilt definitely revolves around working whether someone chooses to or needs to work outside the home, whether someone chooses to or needs to stay home with their children. A lot of the literature I found around mom guilt came from the idea of where or how somebody works, spends their days, who takes care of their children. I think probably this. It might be even where the origin of the term came, comes from. I don't know that for sure. I know the term mommy wars came from the debate around. Being a staying at home parent or a working parent. And I think those wars might have also spurred some guilt. And it sounds like there is guilt on both sides of those equations. And I think there's lots of guilt around our responses to stress, certainly getting angry how we deal with our kids, don't listen, or when we're feeling stressed or frustrated and guilt around needing help. I wanted to just take this episode and sort of think about what we can do about some of these issues. When it comes to how we compare ourselves to other parents, I think honestly the best thing with this is noticing our own internal monologue, which is really challenging. But if you're able to take a step back and say, To notice, oh, you know, I was feeling bad about how I looked this morning. I felt fat and I knew I didn't have enough time to do my hair. And now I see this person who looks so put together and I've created this whole storyline for them about how they are just the perfect parents and their kids are just so much happier. You know, you might start noticing that so much of what you're comparing is actually just happening in your head. So how do you do this? Mindfulness is a really great tool if you practice a mindfulness, you know, even just a few minutes a day. Can be so helpful. Journaling is one of the best ways to start noticing how you're comparing yourselves from others. You might start writing it down, and the more you write it down, the more you notice it. You might then start noticing it when you're not journaling. Also, when you do notice that you are comparing yourself to others, if you can remind yourself that you are getting someone else's highlight reel, that's the expression that I like to think of is, you know, you're seeing someone, their highlight reel, you're not seeing their bloopers, and you're not seeing their mom guilt. I I often see, you know, moms that I, that are so high powered, they seem so put together. They're working full-time jobs and they pick their kids up after school in their power suits and they look amazing. And here I am with my part-time job and I show up in my yoga pants with my messy bun. And I often feel so much mom guilt. Like, what am I. What kind of role model am I setting for my children? What they can do so much more than me. And I know I've had that monologue for years and I actually had another parent come up to me one day and, she was one of these mothers that I really admired and, you know, felt so intimidated by. And she said to me, you see your kids and they just run to you and they're all over you and you know, you just get right down with them. And I, I wish I could do that. And that's just, I wish I knew how to parent like you did. So I try to remember that because I think that was a really meaningful experience for me that we're all doing. I also think with some of this, that this is really an effect of our screen time. Many of us, myself included, are addicted to those screens, and sometimes it's a reminder that, you need to shut Instagram off for a while. Stop watching those parenting pages. Maybe unfollow something or block something, or someone that just doesn't make you feel good about yourself. It it, there's no shame. And sometimes you can look about this, um, and sort of see that, you know, what is, what is there about other moms that makes you wanna be more like them than yourselves. Like that story I just told about the, this other mother, like, what did she see in me and what did I see in her? You know, this is someone who I thought looked so put together and seemed like such a role model for their kids. So how could I bring some aspects of that? I'm not going to, quit my job and become a corporate lawyer or whatever. But you know, how can I model these things for my children? How can I talk to'em about the job I do? And for this person, how could she feel like she could interact with their, her kids more on their level? Another big source of parenting guilt are all those parenting choices that we make. And I know I've said this on other episodes, but maybe you, you're tuning in for the first time or maybe you just need to hear this. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got as a parent was people are often telling you what to do and really pushing what they think is best to justify their own decisions to justify the choices that they made. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already at least a bit attuned to some of the parenting choices that you make. You're really thinking about, you're making conscious choices, It's, it is just worth that reminder that people that are maybe making you feel the most guilty, making you feel like you made the wrong choices or should have made different choices, are usually trying to justify their own choices. And I know for myself that when I feel confident in a choice, I very rarely feel guilty about it until someone else is trying to do that to. So you can remind yourself, go back and remind yourself why you made the choice that you did and that you don't have to justify it for anyone else when it comes to work. And like I said, this is where a lot of writing about mom guilt comes from, which I think really speaks to how much of this comes from society and how much society is giving us mixed messages about what the role of women are and what the role of mothers are, that we have so much guilt over work and staying home with children. It's really important to remember that a happy mom is a happy baby. Some of this comes from privilege, but if you do have the choice and you enjoy working, Or you enjoy staying home, then that is the right choice for you and your family. Obviously some of this we don't have choices about. Some people have to work, some people have to stay home with their kids. Childcare is really unaffordable in lots of places. But if you do have the choice some of this really does come to feeling happy, but we are given so many messages about what is supposed to. Women happy and how could work, be more, how could work make you happier than staying home with your children? But I will say this, and I'll say this as someone who works with parents and works with babies and works with kids, parenting is not always fun. And quite frankly, anyone that thinks every aspect of parenting is. Doesn't sound like someone I'd wanna spend a lot of time with because nobody thinks getting up at three in the morning to change a blowout diaper is fun. I'm sorry. They just, that's not fun. Nobody should think that's fun. And your toddler having a tantrum for two hours cuz you gave them the wrong plate. That's not fun. And for some people, other aspects of it might still outweigh that. And that's totally fine if you find enjoyment in, staying home with your kids. I think that's amazing. I'm very blessed in, I get to work part-time, so, there's downsides of that. But one of the upsides is I do get to spend time with my, you know, spend maybe more time than average with my children than someone who works full-time. But I also get a break from my children and during the day, someone else is changing. My daughter's diapers and someone else is listening to my son talk about Captain Underpants for the 500th time. It, it comes down to privilege for sure. Some of this is capitalism. We definitely need to blame capitalism, which I always like to, whenever I have a chance. But for some of these choices being made for us, and then of course, just the sense of what we're told is supposed to make us happy. I think when it comes to how we respond to how we feel, when we get angry, when we yell at our children, when we're angry in front of our children, some of that is societal too. How. Women in particular are supposed to experience anger again, how we're supposed to find all aspects of parenting so much fun. We're never supposed to get angry when our children don't listen to us. I think reminding yourself that anger is normal. If you do react in a way that you're not happy with, instead of just feeling guilty, which can often lead to more stress and more anger, apologizing to your kids, talking to them really can go a long way. Ing to apologizing to your children, I think is one of the best things that you can do. It teaches them. That anger is normal and that there's also ways to react to it. And you can also check in with yourself about, why you snapped. Were you feeling really stressed? Were you feeling guilty about something? This can help change the scenario for next time. I know for me, in my house, Getting ready in the morning is a huge source of stress. My husband has to leave pretty early, so I'm always. hurting two children out the door, getting two children dressed, dealing with the remnants of breakfast, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And my son's old enough that he can get himself dressed, but every day we'd have to send him up after breakfast. And it was like this huge, huge argument every day. He didn't wanna get dressed. He's not going to school. And it was really causing a lot of stress. And I would yell at him. He had to get ready, and I'd yell at him every day. And then as soon as I'd drop him off at school, I'd feel so guilty all day that I had yelled at him, and then didn't get to see him all day. And, I, I really took a step back and, what could I change about this? And so we just implemented a new rule that we get dressed before we have breakfast, and we lay out our clothing the night before. And if he gets up in time, I'll bring his clothing to his bed and he can get dressed well in bed. So easy, little things like that, but sometimes it just requires a step back. And I would also say for this, just to go back, if you haven't listened to my episode on the stress response yet, because it talks about anger as well, I think. People often feel guilty about asking for help, but this is just your reminder that parenting isn't meant to be a one or two person job. That idea of it takes a village is really, really true, and for many of us, we don't have that village anymore, but I assure you no one is doing this on their own. A lot of the people that we're seeing have lots of support from. Paid staff or grandparents or other relatives in certain places. There's lots of government or community support programs, so you can remind yourself you are not superwoman. And just because other people aren't talking about the support they're getting, that doesn't mean they're not getting it. And I will just say again that it is really important to remember that some parts of parenting sock. And you don't have to, like every aspect of parenting, no matter what society is telling you, and again, you can't pour from an empty cup. So if you're not asking for help, but you are running on empty, that's not great for you or your family. I think it's important to note that we don't hear a lot about the term dad guilt. It does sound like there is growing greats of dads who are feeling like they don't get to spend enough time with their kids. I think that is. Sort of a double-edged sword. It's good to hear that there's more dads that are wanting to spend time with their kids and maybe that there's more societal expectation for that, but it's unfortunate that they too are feeling like they don't have enough time to spend with their kids. We can put that one on capitalism as well. I do think that there is less pressure on dads. There's certainly less societal expectations for them to enjoy all aspects of parenting, to be present in every single aspect of parenting. The bar is often super low for Dads, my husband, who I will say is an absolutely amazing dad. He's an awesome husband. He is an amazing person. I don't know if he's listening. You know, shout out if he is, but he's really great. He is always joking about how low the bar is, just from stories I'll tell him, or just compliments people will give him. So I think that that's just important to note. So much of it has to do with prioritizing yourself as a person. Moms in particular are so often made to feel that once they become parents, that is their number one role. They are a mom and often there might just not be room to be anything else. And so there would be a lot of guilt if you still want to experience that part of yourself. That's you. You've probably not been a mom much longer than you've been a mom, and that doesn't mean that becoming a mom wasn't like the most life-changing experience. I know for me it was. But there's also aspects of myself from before I was a mom that I like and I wanna still get to. So there's often this sense of feeling guilty for still wanting to be yourself. And it does seem that I had good timing in this. a few days ago, I had already started writing up the script for this episode, the Atlantic. Published an article that was titled, The end of mom guilt. It in the show notes. It was again, specifically looking in the, the guilt of working outside the house. But there was some studies that looked at how prioritizing work can be really good for your kids, ideally, if you like your job. So I'll link that if that's something that would be helpful for you, please check that out. And I will just finish with this little story, which was when my son started primary school. This year they have. homework Club, which I sent him for a couple days after school where he can stay and someone else helps him with his homework, which is great cuz he goes to school in a different language than I speak. And it takes out some of the stress of homework. And then he can also continue to stay for Gardeny, which is just extra daycare. And the first few times I picked him up right after, right when homework club ended and then there was just one day I was just like in a flow state with the work I was doing and so, He stayed for his homework club and then he stayed for his gar. And I like rushed myself I got his sister at daycare and then I got him and I was like, oh my goodness, I'm so late. He's gonna be so angry. And I picked him up and he came outside and he was angry and I was like, I'm so sorry. And he, he said, you should be, I wanted to stay longer next time, come later. So I had been feeling so guilty that he was, waiting for me and here. You picked me up too soon, mom. I was having fun playing with my friends, so I like to remember that sometimes, so much of this is internalized and our kids are having totally different experiences than the situation we're creating in our heads. Maybe that's happening for you too. So a reminder, you're doing a great job. Keep it up. Thank you for listening. We will be having our first book club episode next month, so if you haven't heard yet, we're going to be reading the book. You Wish your parents had read and your children will be happy you did. There'll be details in the show notes. If you wanna join me for that, you can listen to the book club episode even if you don't read the book. You can join my newsletter. It's at emily gold yoga.com. I have things going on that are accessible anywhere in the world, so definitely check that out. And if you are in Brussels, you can join me in person for prenatal and postnatal yoga on Mondays. You can find that on my website as well@emilygoldyoga.com. And I've got more things for parents in the works. You can follow me specifically for the podcast Evidence-Based Crunch on Facebook and Instagram, and if you are enjoying this, please leave a review. It really does help so much. Thank you so much for listening.