How do I deal with mom guilt? I feel responsible for everyone’s happiness. Meanwhile, I’m miserable.
I often joke about how I’m a c-suite woman… of The Patel Household. I am always the COO, often CEO, CFO, and of course CWO (Chief Wellness Officer). As a mom, I feel I am responsible for the wellbeing of each member of my family. One thing I’ve learned as a therapist, and regularly relearn in parenting, is that if I’m not well, I cannot legitimately promote the wellbeing of others. It is not authentic or effective. Even knowing this doesn’t prevent me from starving myself of self-care at times. And do you know why I do it? Mom guilt.
As moms, we often get in the habit of putting everyone else first, relying on our resilience to do so. But without reserves, we can’t be resilient for long. We get to our wit’s end, and then we are forced to put ourselves first. This can feel icky, unnatural and selfish. We experience guilt because we’re not used to being number one. But why? We know logically there is benefit to taking care of ourselves and that it is actually best for the whole family if we do.
We all want as good of a life, if not better, for our children than we’ve had for ourselves. However, we don’t always have the means to give them the life we want for them. Sometimes we’ve made bad choices or mistakes that have caused our loved ones to be disappointed. When we cannot provide happiness to loved ones, it hits us as pangs of guilt for not being able to meet their needs. Of course there are times where we are responsible for not giving our loved ones what we think they need to be well. While we can accept that blame, it is not necessary to emotionally beat ourselves up about it. Yet, that’s what we do, emotionally beat ourselves up.
That’s not the only time we experience guilt. We emotionally beat ourselves up for a long list of reasons, most of which are associated with expectations we place on ourselves. Let’s see what contributes to breeding mom guilt:
Comparison
If we lived in a vacuum, likely we wouldn’t experience so much guilt. Unfortunately, we don’t. There are other moms all around us who are better at packing nutritious lunches, having their kids in the best activities and volunteering at school. Seeing that can make one feel they need to step up their game, to do more. Also, many of us grew up with mothers whose main job was to care for the family. There weren’t many other things demanding their time or energy.
Self-Imposed Expectations
When we don’t follow through with something we intended to do for others, it’s easy to assume that the person we’ve let down is disappointed, or more disappointed than they actually are. We often are harder on ourselves than others are on us. Sometimes, there was no discussion about expectations, but we assume that we’ve let someone down when we haven’t. Negative self-talk can veer us off course. When’s the last time you’ve been more upset at yourself about how something went down, than the person who was affected?
Needing Approval
We gauge how we are doing by feedback from others. When we don’t get the approval for something we’ve done, or not done, it’s easy to feel we haven’t done what was expected. Have you ever sent a text to a friend about meeting up for coffee, then not heard back from them? How long until you start wondering if you’ve done something wrong?
If we do things based on how others will perceive us, we are allowing our emotions and self worth to be at the mercy of external factors. It is okay to acknowledge that we are imperfect, that we’ve made mistakes that have negatively impacted others. If we don’t give ourselves the self-compassion we deserve, we can start to perceive ourselves and the situation to be worse than it actually is. If we continue to allow this to happen, our guilt (negative feelings associated to things we have done) can become shame (negative feelings associated with who we think we are).
Here are some tips on what you can do to relieve mom guilt and stop it from becoming long term shame.
- Get external perspective. Ask someone if your concerns are legitimate.
- Learn from it. What is this experience telling you about your values? How often/long have been dealing with this guilt? How can you change what you do to prevent this from recurring?
- Check your standards. Do they need to become more realistic? Are you beating yourself up for not meeting an unachievable or unimportant goal?
- Spend time with people you can relate to. Choose people who can empathize with your life experience.
- Say it out loud. Sometimes guilt becomes more powerful because it becomes secretive, something you feel like you have to hide. Shedding some light to it can disempower it from becoming such a monster.
Although there is still no permanent cure for guilt, there are a number of things we can do to prepare for it, manage the symptoms when it comes, and prevent it from becoming chronic.
