On parental guilt

Once, in a burst of parental guilt over having shopped for myself, I ended up buying a lot of toys for my infant son. Frankly, he didn’t know what to do with them. At the time, I was struck with a bit of panic that I’ve spent money on myself, thus depriving my son of his needs. I felt that as long as most of my money goes to him, then I’ve done a good job as a parent. Of course, in hindsight, I realize how foolish this was. There was nothing to feel guilty about spending for myself. My performance as a mother also should not be based on how many toys I buy. If anything, the clutter in my house suggests I may have bought him too much stuff.

What is it about being a parent and feeling guilty all the time?

Parental guilt hinges on the fact that parenting never ends. Our responsibility over our children’s well-being is relentless. We know that our influence over their upbringing is enormous. One wrong move and we can cause trauma. One negligent act can bring about irreparable harm. At least, this is how we think. When we feel we can’t afford to make mistakes and we aren’t able to provide the perfect parenting our children deserve, guilt naturally overtakes us.

There is another thing that adds to the guilt of moms in particular—the myth of the supermom. This is the mom that can do it all. She can both work and take care of her kids at the same time with ease. I argue that this is a myth not because one can only choose one or the other. The myth of the supermom also afflicts stay-at-home moms, who believe that they should do everything perfectly: provide healthy meals from scratch, provide optimal stimulation for growth and development, and keep the house clean at the same time. What makes it an unrealistic aspiration is that there are implicit assumptions behind the supermom. When people say you can do it all, they imply that you do not need to let go of anything. No sacrifices need to be made. No hard choices to make. What they do not tell us is that there is great cost in trying to do it all.

Time is the most obvious cost. It is a nonrenewable resource; we cannot earn it back. Supermoms have to be mindful and strategic with their time. They have to be efficient and maximize every opportunity. Every day contains hard decisions—do we use up our leave to attend our child’s events? But what if, down the road, we’ll need it in an emergency? We need to be fully present with our child to consider it quality time and yet our other roles pressure us to multitask. Whenever I talk to moms, the first thing they remove from their schedule is self-care. They feel that their time is better spent either for work or for their children. They promise to take care of themselves when they have spare time, which they never have. When we attempt to problem-solve this dilemma, we realize they don’t have time because they feel too guilty to give time to themselves.

This leads us to what we tend to sacrifice: our sense of self. With new moms, especially, it is easy to get lost in motherhood. It is easy—and some cases, required—to fully immerse yourself in fulfilling your child’s needs. A newborn is all needs. I remember my brother musing how fragile humans seem to be, requiring many months before we can even lift our own heads. When we start living our day to day in complete service to someone else, we start forgetting who we are prior to this relationship. When we don’t know who we are, how can we figure out what we need, let alone address them? It then becomes easy to ignore ourselves and forget that we, too, are human beings who need care.

The primary function of guilt is to alert us when we are walking a path away from our values. When feeling guilt, it is best that we reflect which values are crying for our attention and correct our course. I advise my clients to never stay in guilt; instead, we should learn from it. However, sometimes guilt can get us further stuck when they’re based on values that do not serve us, such as the need to be perfect.

I learn a lot from moms who have had at least two children. They share that while they were riddled with guilt and anxiety during their first time, they had let go a lot more when it came to their succeeding children. This is because they have learned to be realistic with their expectations of themselves and their children. They also learned that children are incredibly resilient people, and one mistake will not be their undoing. They have also learned the importance of repairing after a mistake. By not letting the pressure to be perfect get to them, they can more easily practice humility when they make missteps.

Guilt is a sticky emotion, especially when it comes to parenting. The stakes of taking care of a human life are high and the margin of error feels too small. However, letting go of unrelenting standards can allow us to be more at ease with our parenting and make space for us to enjoy our lives with our children.

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