The Mama Guilt

So, I know I haven’t really written anything with any context to it in a long time.  I am aware and it makes me feel guilty.  Please add this to my list of things to feel guilty for – which brings me to that as a topic I would feel better about if I could sort out my thoughts – hence this post.  Of course it’s easier to talk about things that don’t really matter than getting into anything that does, and, lets be honest, I am not so vain as to think that anyone out there they may happen across my blog actually reads it for the content lately.  I felt like when I was going through IVF and trying to deal with own body accepting issues, I might have had something to say worth reading.  I suppose it could have helped someone going through it.  But here lately I don’t feel like I have contributed anything worthwhile.  

I feel like I am generally on any given day, a positive and happy individual.  I may not come across that way because sarcasm is one my biggest humor tools, but really, I am a glass half full type of girl.  I suppose I have my faith to thank for that.  Even at the bleakest times of my life I have always felt hope because of it.  I also try to remind myself to be grateful because my life is pretty dang awesome.  Great husband, good paying job, awesome friends, beautiful home, and the coolest kids I could ask for.  What could there be to complain about right?  So here it is…I want to complain about guilt.  And I even feel guilty for that.

Nothing prepares you for the guilt that comes with being a parent, and specifically, a mother.  There, I said it, and the world did not collapse.  I have felt, and have also been told, that because I have gone through IVF and hardships to have my children, that I should never complain.  I even remember feeling that way when I was smack dab in the middle of it, trying to hold on to having a child with my fingernails, and then someone would complain about their little one.  The combination of jealousy, anger, and all those hormones would spring up inside me so quickly I wanted to scream at them or punch them in the face.  So much so that I tried to do very little complaining about my pregnancies even when I was covered with tiny red itchy bumps, or when my babies would keep me up all night.  But I have since discovered that there is a fine line between COMPLAINING about something, and about keeping it real and being honest with yourself and each other.  To make my life seem all roses and daisies would really not be telling the whole truth, and even my three year old knows that not telling the whole truth is the same as straight up lying.  And here lately, social media seems to have helped us all to not tell the WHOLE truth.  Life is made up of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and no one ever talks about the last two.  I say all this to say – I am not complaining, just trying to keep it real, and trying to talk myself through something I never read about before I had kids – The Mama Guilt.

My personality lends itself to guilt and so did my upbringing.  It also taught me to hold my guilt internally and to just deal with it.  I was always the kid that couldn’t stand to disappoint my parents, or anyone for that matter, and so, needless to say, I felt guilty about something pretty much all the time.  Still do come to think of it.  But this Mama Guilt is a killer, it can be overwhelming and exhausting.  Sure, it can motivate you to do some great things, but it can depress you more than watching an episode of Bachelor in Paradise (and that’s pretty dang bad), and it can wear on you more than a pair of tight underwear.

I remember the first Mama guilt I experienced was feeling guilty because IVF worked for me and didn’t for a lot of the women in my support group online.  Then it was because I was ordered to be on bed rest because of my pre-eclampsia when there was so much to do around the house.  Then came the guilt because I seemed to struggle with breastfeeding a newborn after being brainwashed that it was the ONLY way to feed your baby if you actually loved it.  It progressed into feeling guilty that I was so tired and couldn’t keep up.  That I couldn’t handle the things that other Mama’s seemed to do just perfectly.  It was saying no to commitments because I needed more time with my baby.   It was missing church because I couldn’t spend one more minute away from my baby.  The guilt of going back to work trumped everything, and if ever in my life I have been clinically depressed, it was then.  So much so that I started researching  the value of my house and binging on episodes of “Tiny House Nation” – dreaming of selling everything, building a tiny house and quitting my job.  If my husband ever knew how serious I was about that on some of those days, he might have made me go talk to someone.  And to be honest I probably should have.  The guilt of being a Mama was too much and the fact that I couldn’t talk to it about anyone without feeling guilty that I felt the guilt in the first place was unbearable.

The Mama guilt for me has always come down to time.  Knowing that even stay at home moms could feel the same type of guilt, being a working mom seemed to compound it.  And Lord Jesus help me, listening to Dr. Laura on the way home from work made me want to stick a rusty fork in my eye.  I agree with her on most things but she is VEHEMENTLY against being a working mom.  I don’t know why I put myself through listening to it.  I suppose it  was like a way of punishing myself because I knew I would always come up short.  When I had two kids, the time part of the Mama guilt grew exponentially when I could see that our daughter would get short changed to make up for lost time with Isaac, only to try to make up for it by shortchanging Isaac.  It was a never ending pit of guilt.

Then started the out pour of cute, well meaning, deep poems/videos/stories/quotes  that I would come across on social media.  You have all seen the ones I am talking about.  I just read one this morning, which I suppose, is why I feel the need to respond.  It was all about how there is a last time to everything.  A last time you will rock your baby.  A last time you will sing “wheels on the bus” with them. And  on and on and on.  Granted, it totally made me do the ugly cry, but when you already feel the Mama guilt, the last thing you need is a little poem to remind us that if your child asks you to sleep with them instead of going to your bed to get much needed rest, it will probably be the last time they will ever ask you to do it.   I mean, come on, like we need to feel guilty about something else?  I know they could be good reminders not to take precious moments with your children for granted, but I think they may hinge a little too much on not being able to enjoy the moment for fear that the moment is going to end.

I have referred to the “Book of Questions” before, because the book simultaneously drove me crazy and taught me a lot about myself and about how we change over time.  Anyway, one of the questions in the book I have been thinking about for the better part of  two decades was  something like this: “While walking in the park you see a stranger and know with absolute certainty that you will meet and fall in love and have the most unimaginable deeply loving relationship with that person.  The stuff of dreams.  Sadly with that comes the knowledge that in a year that person will be hit by a car and killed.  Would you still go talk to the person?  And now I have shared it with you so you can ponder it also.  Anyway, the answer I wrote down in the book over 20 years ago said that I wouldn’t because I would not be able to enjoy any second of it because I would be worried about how it would end.  That’s was just me then, I am sure there are people who feel differently.  I obviously feel differently now because I married a man 18 years older than myself with the knowledge that, even though we have shared the deepest love I could imagine, there is a great possibility that he will not be here for a huge portion of my life, even if we both live long lives.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t lie awake at night once and a while thinking and crying about it or make it less hard to accept – but I would still make the same decision I made six years ago, knowing all I know now.  I have enough stress in my life to think about those facts every day.  Just like I feel like we have enough guilt to carry around to not have to fear that every moment with our child is the last, or even that if you tell your kid that you can’t lie down with him at night that he will be royally screwed up.  

Sometimes it feels impossible to slow down and be present in every single moment.  And here is where I am trying to convince myself to cut myself some slack.  It is okay to not be present in every single moment, in fact, its dern near impossible.  Some nights it is okay to say “Isaac, Mama isn’t going to lay down with you tonight because ( I haven’t eaten all day, I have to clean up, I have to take a shower, I need a glass of wine and an episode of The Walking Dead….you catch my drift).  No matter how hard I try, I am never going to be all the things that my kids need.  I am never going to always see the next boo boo before it happens.  I am never going to always say the right thing.  I am never going to always discipline without being angry.  I am never going to always give enough of myself to them, because what would they want with an empty, exhausted, broken down shell of a Mama anyway?  And here is the kicker - its OKAY.  As long as my kids know that I love them and I am always trying to be the best Mama I can be, can I allow myself to let go of the guilt for not always being that?  I write that as a question for a reason.  Because it makes me feel guilty for saying yes. Oh that guilt, what a vicious circle you are.

I saw this video on another blog the other day.  Man, you want to talk about ugly cries….and at work no less.  It helped remind me that even on my not so great days, I still have been loving to my kids, we still end the day saying thank you to God, and who knows what other difference I could have made in a day that may otherwise have been filled with guilt for not being everything to everyone.  I suppose it could have made me feel a little more guilty since I don't have as many kids and I can't remember the last time I made a meal for someone else, or even made it to home group, but that is a guilt I could get around to get the meaning from this one.  I dare you not to do the ugly cry and I hope it reminds you to cut yourself a little slack from the Mama guilt too.