The subtle art of being a guilt-free mom
Tips to identify and overcome the working mom guilt
It really doesn’t matter if you are a working or a stay-at-home mom; motherhood comes with the added accessory of ‘guilt’. In the world of motherhood, what you do is just never enough. Like many mothers, I confess to be riddled with guilt over mundane things like forgetting about a school field-trip or packing a sandwich. I know I’m not to blame, but motherhood is synonymous to multi-tasking and with multi-tasking comes inability to cope, followed inevitably by the ability to forget something. This eventually escalates into a major guilt trip, building up feelings like depression and adding up a list of negative thoughts which start with ‘I’m not good enough.”
I’ve just begun to follow stoicism, stumbling upon the works of Marcus Aurelius (Meditations) while doing some random reading. So, when I plunged into the depths of one of my guilt trips last week, I asked myself, “How would Marcus Aurelius handle things, were he to be in my place?”
Stoicism teaches us to identify a feeling, then step back and analyse it, using logic and common sense. I did precisely that. Shoving that cookie into my kids snack box, I sat myself at my desk and analysed my feelings.
Yes, guilt was definitely playing on my mind, big time. The next question I asked myself, what induced this guilt trip. This is what I came up with:
Guilt comes in all forms. Here are a few forms I’ve experienced:
- Self-induced guilt: We are our own toughest task masters. Self-induced guilt can be brought on by our own expectations. We form expectations of how we are supposed to behave as parents based on our past experiences of parenting. An easy analogy to this would be a train and its tracks; where our expectations are the tracks and our life is the train. The train coming off the tracks is perceived as catastrophic.
- Family-induced guilt: Remember the time when a questioning look by those closest to you was all you needed to have a meltdown. That raised eyebrow is enough to bring to surface what you have been feeling all along i.e it triggers self-induced guilt. The family-induced guilt is not restricted to adults only; believe me, kids are equally good at it. Remember, family-induced guilt may not served with an intention to make you feel bad. It just happens and you havr to k ow how to deal with it.
- Comparative guilt: This is the guilt induced by comparing yourself to the other mothers. Once you go down this dark alley, turning back is difficult. Wherever you go, you will always see mothers who are better than you, spending quality time with their kids, making healthy, nutritious meals, helping them with their homework; in short doing things that you are not and making you feel like a piece of old cheese.
Now that we have our guilt sources sorted, lets look at 3 simple rules to overcome these guilt trips and lead a happier life.
Rule 1. Don’t be a hard task master, especially on yourself. Tell yourself you dont have to have a score of perfect 10 all the time. It’s just fine if your kid eats a cookie as a snack for a day (or two) as long as she is getting other nutritious meals.
Rule 2. Don’t give in to emotional blackmail: The emotional blackmail can only be felt if you accept it. Learn to identify and reject the emotional blackmail. After all, you are in charge of your feelings.
Rule 3: Don’t compare yourself to others: Remember, they are not walking in your shoes. And while you are at it, remember not to judge or induce guilt into other similar sufferers. An encouraging smile, a hug or a few words of praise will do a lot to boost the self-image of a woman wearing herself down to the bone to manage her home, family and career all at one time.
Being a guilt-free mom is a truly liberating experience and I urge all you guilt riddled mom’s to make an effort to overcome this feeling.
Remember, your mental wellbeing is crucial to your kids/family/job/business. Putting up with unnecessary pressure will not solve your problem. So take a chill pill (as my daughter would put it) and enjoy just being you.
-Christabelle
