How to End Mom Guilt FOR GOOD

Is mom guilt stealing your time, energy, and joy?

You're not alone. 94% of moms report experiencing mom guilt, but most of the advice you've been given about overcoming it simply doesn't work.

In this episode, I reveal where mom guilt really comes from, why traditional solutions fall short, and the ONE realization that finally helped me overcome it after years of struggle.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• Why mom guilt is actually a good thing (and what it reveals about you as a mother)
• The unexpected sources of mom guilt that might be influencing your beliefs
• Why common advice like "just get over it" or "prioritize yourself" doesn't actually solve the problem
• The powerful concept that transformed my relationship with mom guilt
• How to recognize that having multiple callings doesn't make you a bad mom

Want to learn more about Saint Mother Teresa? Check out her official autobiography!

HOMEWORK:

Sit with your feelings of mom guilt and explore the beliefs and preconceived notions you might have about what makes a "good mom." Make a list of all the things you do that you know make you a good mom. Then try on this new thought: "I, too, can have a call within a call." 

COMING UP NEXT:

In the next episode, I'll explain why it's crucial that moms make time for themselves and how doing so is proven to benefit the whole family.

CONNECT WITH AMBER: Website | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn

Ready to finally get to the root of your problems and change your life FOR GOOD? Book your free 60-minute consult to learn more about working 1:1 with Dr. Amber.

Transcript

0:00

It's time to call out one of the biggest saboteurs out there, mom guilt. All moms experience it, but I'm willing to bet that you have no idea how much of your precious time and energy it is stealing. You're told to just get over it and not feel guilty, but it is not that simple. In this episode, we are talking about how vicious mom guilt is, where it really comes from, and the thing that might finally help you overcome it for good. Welcome to More Time for Mom, where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. Ugh, if I had a dollar for every minute I have wasted suffering from mom guilt, I would be living in a mansion, wouldn't have to work, everything would just be perfection. Instead, I have wrestled with mom guilt so badly over the years. And I know I am not alone. In fact, statistics show that 94% of moms report having mom guilt. It is something that virtually everyone experiences to some degree or another. And I just really want to unpack in this episode why it is so vicious, why it keeps coming up and it's so hard to solve. why so many of the solutions you have been given in the past haven't helped you decrease your sense of guilt and then share with you the single most powerful thing that I stumbled upon last fall that finally helped me ditch the mom guilt for good. Just to set the baseline, I'm sure you know what I mean when I say mom guilt, but the Cleveland Clinic defines mom guilt as feelings of guilt or shame that you feel when you're not living up to your own or others' expectations. It's that sense of failing, something you feel like you are doing wrong. which inevitably triggers such immense stress and it leads to anxiety, depression, can lead to chronic disease and other big mental health concerns. It's something that we don't want but feels like such an inevitable part of motherhood. What to do? I don't know about you, but mom guilt was something I never expected. I had never in my life heard of it until it washed over me as soon as I had my first son. Looking back, I guess the feelings of mom guilt started even during pregnancy, thinking that I needed to find all of the right things, the right car seat, the right stroller, the right crib. Are you going to breastfeed or bottle feed? And you're just bombarded with all of these options that really led me to feel like there must be one right way to do everything. Moms experience so much societal pressure. There are all of these images out there and stereotypes of what the perfect mom looks like or does or, again, how her kids behave. I just think we are not in any way adequately prepared for the reality of motherhood until it is upon us. Then we find ourselves with a very common lack of support Everything in your life is different and yet you are expected to look and perform like you did before you had kids while also being the perfect mom and wife at home. This gets exacerbated by social media and comparison because others can make it look so easy, which then contradicts your personal experience and then you don't know what is really normal or not. I'm so thankful that more women are speaking out about this now, but 12 years ago when I had my first son, I felt like all I saw were depictions of the perfect mom and everybody having it all together, which made me feel like I was the problem. So I just worked harder and harder to try and keep up with it all and to seek out the right way to do everything. You worry that if you get it wrong in one dimension, then you've somehow messed your kids up for life, right? Like if your birth didn't go as planned, or if you had trouble breastfeeding and ended up needing to bottle feed, or if your child is having some sort of developmental delay or ends up with special needs, then it's really easy to perceive criticism from others. This might be well-intentioned family members who are offering advice or it could even be your pediatrician. It can be the online sources that you find and they are making it seem like everything should be one way when that doesn't match your reality. Mom guilt can also come from trying to figure out your own parenting style, which is so hard because I don't know about you, but these were not conversations my husband and I had until we were going through it. It was only then that we realized how we were each raised a different way and how we had then thought we might handle this kind of situation with our own children. We had to really sift through what we agreed upon or not. Then there are these big generational shifts in how society used to parent kids or what the default parenting method was versus now we have so much more appreciation for kids as their own unique beings instead of the old expectations that children should be basically mini adults and they should keep adults happy and act in ways that didn't trigger us. But it's really, really hard then to stick with your parenting choices around other family members, like your parents, right? When they see that you're making different choices than they made. Mom guilt comes in when we are unable to keep our kids happy all of the time. Anytime they are experiencing big emotions or frustrations, especially if they are acting out in public, it can be so humiliating and make you feel like you are doing it wrong. When in reality, they are just having their moment and needing to let the emotion pass through. You can experience mom guilt when you feel bored or if you are willing to admit that you're not 100% fulfilled just by motherhood. I, for one, always dreamed of being a wife and a mom. And I always thought I would be a housewife and couldn't wait to stay home with my kids. But that didn't end up being my reality. I felt so torn and guilty over needing to work, my family was dependent on my income, and I just felt like such a horrible mom because I worked outside the home from the beginning. Somehow, I had acquired this belief that a good mom didn't work and would be at her kids' beck and call 24-7, which really just isn't reality, even if you don't work outside the home. Even stay-at-home moms report feeling major mom guilt. So it's really not about whether you work or not or whether you have to leave your kids in child care or not. It comes in when you are making decisions about what to feed your kids and how much screen time to allow. Whether you might have concerns about your kids' weight or health or think that they should be doing certain activities and you're driving yourself crazy trying to get them to all these places. Maybe they struggle in school and you feel like that's somehow a reflection on you. All of these things add to our guilt. But then mom guilt comes in so hard in terms of our time. Because as a mom, your time is not your own. It is so inevitably dictated by your kids' needs and schedules. Even when you want to make time for yourself or just take care of your own basic needs, let alone make traction towards your big dreams and goals, it can feel so impossible. It's so hard to ask for help. I know that I wasn't even comfortable leaving my first son with a babysitter until he was almost a year old. If I'm honest, I was even nervous leaving him alone with my husband when I had to go to work. Which was absolutely not any reflection on my husband. It simply was a sign that I was crazy. And I just couldn't, I just couldn't stand to be away from my son. But then I felt so overwhelmed by not having any time for myself. I thought that I needed to be fully attentive to him, all of his waking moments, Even to the point of not wanting to go take a shower because I thought that then I might not be instantly available if he needed me. Clearly that's an unhealthy extreme and I hope you haven't experienced mom guilt to that degree. But it is everywhere. It's so common and it just pervades every season of mom life. It is not something that is limited to the postpartum period or to toddler mom life or to having elementary school kids. I think this is something that we are just inevitably going to battle every step of the way until we learn what it really is and how to dispel it. Mom guilt is actually a really good thing. It comes from such a beautiful place. It's a reflection of your desire to give your kids the best. It means that you love them so much and feel such responsibility for their sweet little souls. And that's not wrong. It's a wonderful sign that you care, okay? Mom guilt is a good thing. It is a sign that you care. If you didn't, you wouldn't feel guilty. So we need to recognize it for what it is, which is proof that you are a good mom doing her best. But left unattended, mom guilt just grows and grows until it leads not just to chronic stress, but to depression, and we might hate to admit it, but rage and resentment, which is not good for anyone, especially not our kids that we love and want to protect so much. Yet the typical solutions you are given are not really helpful at all in my opinion. I tried each of these and I still wrestled with mom guilt so badly. The first most common solution that gets offered is to just get over it. My sweet husband, for example, was always confused as to why I felt so anxious and worried over all of these things, why I was feeling guilty over X, Y, Z. And through conversations I've had with him, I realized that mom guilt is something pretty unique to women. For instance, there's no real such thing as dad guilt. You don't hear this conversation in society. We could go on and on about different gender norms and how things have and haven't changed. I am so thankful that my husband is so involved and helpful at home and we have worked really hard to divide the labor over the years since we both work outside the home. But again, overcoming mom guilt is not as simple as just flipping the switch and not caring about these things anymore. Another solution you hear all the time is to just give yourself more grace to replace your negative self-talk with all these positive affirmations. But that, to me, always felt so superficial. Even if your rational brain recognizes the validity of those affirmations, it can still feel false. It can still feel out of alignment with your personal experience. That's where identifying the source of your mom guilt can really be helpful. You've got to dissect where your personal beliefs about what a good mom is or does come from. It's often wrapped up in what your mom did or how you felt about her or what you have internalized from societal messages. Another common solution moms are given is to just ask for help so that you have more time freed up or more capacity for taking care of yourself and doing what you need to do but we all know that asking for help is really hard and it is vulnerable. It's really triggering for those of us who are people pleasers and perfectionists and who have prided ourselves on being able to do so much in the past. It takes a lot of strength to even admit that you are struggling and then even once you are, It's exhausting and overwhelming to try and figure out where to ask for help and getting the right help. For instance, is this babysitter or this child care facility, is this other person going to take good care of my child? Because moms need to know that your babies are in good hands in order to have your brain relax and focus and then use your time for what you're trying to do. The solution I despise is when you're told to just prioritize yourself. That common refrain that self-care isn't selfish and you just have to make it non-negotiable. I don't know what mom can do that without feeling some sense of guilt. If you are able to do that, come and tell me your secrets. DM me on Instagram at Solutions for Simplicity because I'm always on the hunt for real actionable tips that work. But even in seasons where I did try to make myself more of a priority, I would then find that it only lasted so long and something would change like a kid would get sick or we would have a sleep regression or family would come to visit and it threw off our whole routine In the past, I tried to take advantage of the advice to just get up before your kids get up so that you could have a little bit of time to, you know, start your day off in peace or get yourself ready. But I always found that my kids just woke up even earlier. It was like they had this extra six cents or something that I was up and they wanted to be with me. It's just so hard to actually have consistency around taking care of yourself. The last solution that I have seen out there is to admit you can't do everything, just make peace with that fact, and instead focus on what you are doing well. And I do agree this is important, right? We so often fail to give ourselves credit for how much you are doing and how well you do it, even if it doesn't feel so great in the moment. In most cases, everything is going just fine, but you have trained your brain from an early age to think that fine is wrong. Fine is bad because it's not perfect. So if these solutions haven't cut it for you, and if you, like me, have agonized over feeling guilty for so many years, I want to share with you the one thing that finally clicked. I'm really in awe now having this epiphany and realization because after wrestling with mom guilt for so long, I just assumed that I would always feel that burden, that weight of the guilt. And now I truly don't. Yes, it comes into play in little moments here or there when I'm having a hard day or one of my kids is especially struggling. But on the whole, everything is so much better now because of this one realization. Most of my mom guilt was always around the fact that I work. And I hate that distinction between working mom or stay-at-home mom because all moms are hard-working moms. And so many of the stay-at-home moms that I work with have that deep sense of if not resentment, at least sadness that they have dreams they aspire to achieve but feel like it's so impossible until their kids get older. But I promise you that is not true. The thing that shifted everything for me was this simple realization last fall where I was really infatuated with learning more about St. Mother Teresa. As I had lost my mom and was grieving her, I recalled how much my mom had loved Mother Teresa and so I started reading some biographies about Mother Teresa and I just happened upon this line in a book that talked about how Mother Teresa received a call within a call, as she called it, where she had already become a nun and dedicated herself to Christ and was serving in one capacity at a school in India. And then while she was on the train one day, she felt this deep, deep pull to go and leave her convent and work out on the streets in the slums serving the poorest of the poor. As soon as I saw that phrase, a call within a call, I just felt this overwhelming sense of hope and freedom because We can all have a call within a call. Our primary vocation is as mothers. If we are given children, then we do bear this beautiful opportunity and responsibility to shepherd them and care for them until they are old enough to do that for themselves. But that in no way negates the fact that you can have additional callings, additional desires. And I just really came to believe that if God has put some dream on your heart and that dream keeps coming up or keeps being part of your reality, Whether it's, you know, for me, the fact that I do need to work to help bring in income for my family, or whether I have wanted to have my business in addition to my full-time job. For you, it might be a particular hobby or creative outlet. Whatever is on your heart, you too can have that call within a call. It is okay and normal to have multiple callings and those don't have to interfere with your primary vocation. That made such a difference for me. It is not either or. There is no trade-off between being a great mom and working or going after your goals. or even just wanting more time for yourself. I know this sounds simple and obvious, but my brain really battled mom guilt until I saw this phrase, a call within a call, and it just feels so right and true to me that that applies to all of us. Your homework for today is to really sit with your feelings of mom guilt, explore those beliefs and preconceived notions you might have about what a good mom is, and make a list of all the things you do that you know make you a good mom. I want you to really confront your brain with all of that hard evidence showing how much you care. Then try this new thought on for size. Does it feel good to you to think that you too can have a call within a call? If you'd like more information on Mother Teresa, I will put some links in the description. And if mom guilt is something that you have wrestled with for a really long time, then I invite you to schedule a free 30-minute call with me and let's explore that together. Join me back next episode to learn why it's so crucial that moms do make time for themselves and how doing so is proven to benefit the whole family. Until then, remember nothing you do changes how wonderful and worthy you are. I know more than anyone how precious your time is, so the fact that you spent it listening to this podcast means the world. Make sure to subscribe and if you got value out of this show, I would be so honored if you'd leave a review and share this episode with another busy mama who needs to hear it. We've got this.