How To Get Off the Mom-Guilt Train to Crazy Town
I sat down at my computer tonight to “finally” get some work done and I’m hit by the Mom Guilt. I put a lot of hours into my career right now. Between the work that pays the bills, learning to run a business, and trying to grow my reach so I can help more people I work more than I did in my 9-5 job. Right now as I type this I’m sitting at the kitchen table at my in-laws at 7:45 on a Saturday night of a long weekend while everyone else watches a movie. The thing is I love my work. I’m so excited to expand my business and take on new challenges, and I have some pretty big personal goals for the next ten years. I also know all of this hard work I am doing now is helping climb step by step towards my goal of helping more people recognize mental barriers to success so they can reach heights they never dreamed possible. But in the short term those long hours come with a whole lot of guilt. A lot of it is Mom Guilt.
If you’re a mom (or a dad but I think women are worse at this than men) you know exactly what I’m talking about. And you don’t have to be a working mom to get it. We all have the mom guilt. For me and for lots of people my brain starts getting a case of the “shoulds”. As in “I should be going to every ballet class, soccer game, and school bake sale all while I hand-make Halloween costumes and cook Pinterest worthy meals that my kids love and are health, oh and I should look like a fashion model while I do it”. Sound familiar? As women we are constantly judging ourselves and we need to stop this. There is research showing women who are successful in their careers are viewed negatively (usually as aggressive, ambitious, or power-hungry), but when men are successful they is praised. It’s easy to think of examples where we have seen this happen. Come on ladies, we don’t need to judge ourselves, the rest of the world is judging us every day.
Think about it this way. How can I possibly be the best mom I can be if I’m constantly feeling guilty for not doing enough? For not being good enough? For not having it all? Nonsense. I can’t teach my daughter to be a strong, independent, confident woman if I don’t act that way myself.
We can change this pattern of guilt, but it takes practice. Here are the top things I recommend to battel the guilt, and particularly the Mom Guilt. I know they work from my decade of experience helping others, and from my own experience.
Ask yourself, if it was my daughter/friend/partner telling me they felt this guilt what would I tell them? You would probably give them a million examples of how they are amazing to boost their confidence right? So it’s time to start doing this for ourselves.
Make a list to challenge the guilt. I love lists. And I often find once I write my thoughts down they don’t feel nearly so powerful. Take a page and divide it down the middle. On the left write down all the ways that you were a Good Mom today, and on the right put down the ways you felt that you were a Bad Mom today. Get creative. It’s totally cool to write things like “baby and I are still kicking”, or “I got both of us bathed and dressed today”. Celebrate the small victories. Our brains are super good at focusing on the bad. Don’t let them! Challenge your brain to see the good and the bad. You might do some things wrong, but I’m guessing there are a lot of things you are doing right every day.
Call a fellow mom you trust to vent about your day. I love doing this. Every time I think I’ve made some horrible parenting blunder I call a more experienced mom and she tells me a more outrageous story that happened to her and one of her kids and I feel less like a failure and more like a normal mom just learning what the heck I’m doing.
Do something for yourself. Moms are the worst at taking time for themselves. Everyone else in the family looks dressed to impress and you’re still in last night’s jammies with mystery food stuck in your hair, am I right? We can’t help anyone else if we’re not taking care of ourselves. Take 20 minutes and have a relaxing bath, or go for a walk, or watch some reality TV, whatever it is that gives you a mental break from all the worry and guilt.
My final tip. Keep in mind that what we see on TV and social media is not always real. I know we know this but it’s super easy to forget when we see pictures of celebrity moms in their perfectly cleaned homes with their glowing skin and the 7-course dinner on the table. No they did not do that alone. They had help. Lots of it. Chefs, nannies, makeup artists, hair stylists, personal stylists the list goes on. It’s time we stop judging ourselves based on what we think others’ lives are like. Girl you’re a mom. You are keeping another human alive and raising them to be a good person. Give yourself a pat on the back and go take a bubble bath.