Say Goodbye to Mommy Guilt: How We Can Redefine What Being A "Good Mom" Is

My mother was a SAHM for the first 13 years of my life. A former teacher, she left the workforce right before I was born in 1990, and later returned once my siblings and I were older and more self-sufficient.

She was with us constantly. I was reading by age 3. My brother was doing complex multiplication by the time he was in Second Grade. My sister, the baby, had a creative and elaborate imagination well beyond that of the average toddler. Every summer, we went to “Mom’s School” and had to do math, ELA exercises and read every morning before we could play, watch TV or go in the pool. I credit a wide majority of my educational and career accomplishments to her - she was always around, teaching, providing understanding, and helping me grow.

Which is why, as a mother who works, I am ridden with guilt. That because I chose to be a career woman and a mother, my child(ren) may not have the advantages that I had as the child of a SAHM. I read to my daughter daily, but is it enough? My mornings and evenings are dedicated to her, but what about the 9-5…is this or will this impact her negatively??

Like many women, I suffer from a textbook case of Mommy Guilt.

Mommy Guilt (n): Feelings of guilt women experience in relation to their children. Moms constantly worry about making mistakes and trying to get everything right. It stems from the unrealistic ideal of a “perfect Mom.”

It’s tough, right? Impossible, really. Once the work day ends, the so-called “second shift” begins, where we go into full-blown homemaker mode. Some even feel compelled to continue multi-tasking between work and Mom mode during after hours, making life even more frantically tricky.

I always wanted children. In fact, it was a dream of mine. A dream that lay closely-anchored to that of my career. I never wanted to be a SAHM and was determine to choose both paths, albeit knowing they would come with their own sets of unique challenges. But still the nagging question continues to live rent free in my head: “Will I ever be enough?”

Since this feeling of Mommy Guilt plagues so many women, Harvard Business School conducted a study regarding women and their daughters. The results found that the daughters of employed mothers perform better in their eventual careers that the daughters of SAHMs. Furthermore, they wind up just as happy in adulthood as children of Moms who stayed home. Conversely, sons were unaffected by this maternal influence, since many psychologically align with their fathers, who are typically employed. In a non-working way, the study suggested that adult sons of working mothers spend an extra 50 minutes per week caring for their family members.?

Albeit reassuring, this study doesn’t solve the larger problem at hand: a mother’s guilt. And truthfully, a lot of it has to do with attaining Maslow’s level of self-actualization as the “perfect Mom.” And guess what? It’s up to us to remove that phrase from our vocabularies or simply redefine it.

I truly believe a mother’s ambition is not only good, but integral to her family - but we also have to reevaluate the unrealistic expectations that we place on ourselves. Children aren’t looking for perfection ; they’re looking for mothers who love them dearly. It makes me realize that I can take a step back and not degrade myself for not making a batch of egg cups and healthy zucchini muffins for my daughter because it slid lower on my priority scale. That giving her Goldfish doesn’t mean that I’ve failed.?

Maybe it’s more about quality instead of quantity. That an hour of uninterrupted Mommy and Me time is worth its weight in gold, and would be better than half-assing eight hours of time in which you weren’t truly present. And that throwing on Bluey for a half hour, so I can clean the kitchen and catch up on texts, isn’t the worst thing in the world.?

Always important to note is that social media is a true master of deception. Any Mom can be anything, and everything, all the time. I will be the first to admit that I get triggered when I see Moms do it all on the days where I feel like a total hot mess. And I’m sure others would look at my life on my best day and feel the same way. Subjective perception is the devil and we are all trying to do our best given our individual sets of circumstances.?

My Mom went back to teaching full-time when I was a 13-year-old; she also went back to school and got her Masters Degree after I had graduated from college. She did this while teaching religion, volunteering, managing a household, raising three children, and racing us around to all of our activities. Sometimes, I have no idea how she did it all. And that’s when I give myself grace - because I know she gave herself some, too.?

So, ditch the guilt. Do your thing. If my daughter doesn’t read 191 books in First Grade like I did, I realize it’s not a poor reflection on me as a mother. Because regardless, in your child’s eyes, the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world .