Mom Guilt
If you ask a mother how her children came into this world, most can recall specific details later in life. It’s the weeks and months after that become a sleep-deprived blur of cries, late-night feedings, and sour, milk-stained clothes. It’s a crash and burn of pregnancy hormones and an oxytocin roller coaster.
I struggled the weeks and months after my first son was born. Not with the transition into motherhood. I knew motherhood was something I always wanted. But I had an unresolvable conflict of values:
wanting to be the best mother to this new little life
being a supportive and loving wife
being a strong and successful career woman
I had resentment, physical & emotional stress, and the feeling I wasn't doing anything right. The mom guilt crept in. And I felt pressure to perform and sacrifice and have this unreal outward appearance of having everything together.
This conflict, paired with my determination to do things differently than my mother, was a recipe for martyrdom. And the more I gave of myself, the more I was rewarded. How often have I heard from family and friends the words “super mom,” or “she does it all,” while feeling absent from my own family and constantly in my head? It was a perpetual cycle of incomplete tasks and feelings of inadequacy. Not to mention all the guilt.
Self-care was non-existent then, except that it became another almost annoying task that moms should take time for. “Self-care” just added to my stressful to-do list. It didn’t make me feel better. It was performative. Even when I got back into exercise, it wasn’t for self-care. I started running, though my body ached from sitting in a car for work most days only to come home and carry a baby on my hip the rest of my waking hours. From all sides, the pressure to shrink back to the "old me" was almost claustrophobic. But so was the pressure to sacrifice that part of myself for the benefit of my family. How can I be so selfish when I need to work, come home, and raise exemplary children? On top of all that, I need to make love to my husband and do chores. I need to grocery shop, cook, clean, and put cherries on top of sundaes made with organic, grass-fed ice cream. I didn’t know where I fit in my list of priorities.
And the truth is I pushed caring for myself to the side for a long time. I was exhausted and run-down. Thinking about exercise or any extracurricular activity other than sleep cracked my stressed foundation. I needed time to get out of the baby stages, get on a normal sleep schedule, and get my body back to some baseline before taxing it with exercise or dieting.
My kids are older now, and I still have guilt. But I have learned to sit with it. I still compare myself to other moms and feel inadequate at times. I sit with that too. But it’s taken me a while to realize I can’t do it all. I’m still training myself to do what feels right to me. I pay attention to my own body--what feels stressful over what makes me feel more present with my family. Taking time to myself to be active, but also being active as a family. Doing what I love doing for self-care. Those are the things that make me whole again when I’m feeling deflated. It took me time to understand that there will never be perfect harmony. It’s the decision to buy store-bought cookies for the school bake sale, so I can play outside with the kids instead of slaving over the oven. It’s the weekends we spend lounging around and letting the chores pile up, so we can snuggle on the couch. That, to me, is as balanced as we’re going to get. And I think we’re doing ok.