Guilt and Worry

I don’t know if it’s because I’m finally growing up or because I want to defend my attentional space rigorously, but in a world or “busy” and “distracted”, I’ve been questioning what I’m doing it all for. As vulnerable as it is to cut through the baloney and the flim flap, to quote my son’s soccer team, “THIS IS WHAT’S UP”.

19 years ago, Darin and I made the choice to leave our amazing families to move out west.

The idea was romantic and adventurous and we were dreamers with no idea what we were doing. By the time our kids were toddlers, we were busy and bedraggled and tired. I went back to work when the kids were between 6 and 9 months and we made use of the best daycares, preschools and child sitters we could find and I felt guilty.

Having worked with moms everyday for 2 decades, the all too common resounding theme of motherhood and the two apparent constants are GUILT and WORRY. We feel guilty because we’re not home enough. We feel guilty because when we are home enough, we take them for granted and we have moments of impatience. We feel guilty because maybe we can’t breastfeed them the way we’re expected to. We worry that maybe we’re too lenient or too strict. We feel guilty because we should read to them more. We feel guilty because they have an X-box. We feel guilty because the I-watch they desperately wanted for their birthday emit EMF’s and when they go out to lunch with their friends they’re eating fast food.

We compare ourselves to the people around us who seem to have figured it all out, and we sometimes feel inadequate.

Maybe I’m slow to launch, but it’s just now occurring to me that the guilt and worry, as culturally expected as they are, aren’t necessary. These things do not come hand in hand with parenthood, despite what we’ve been told. Guilt traps are baited with comparison and comparison is always destructive, unless it’s used intentionally for the sake of gaining inspiration.