No More Mom Guilt

One of my first and most brilliantly clear memories of being a mom was after my first night feeding with my son, I placed him back in the hospital bassinet that was surrounded by Plexiglas so I could stare at him. And in those quiet first moments of mother son bonding I sobbed hysterically because all I could think was that he was so absolutely perfect and all I could do was fuck him up. Thirteen years later I’m happy to report that I don’t think I’ve done such a terrible job so far. I also learned pretty quickly my son was not ever perfect. Nor do I need him to be. Nor do I need to be.

This last month I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with a soon-to-be-mama, a newly minted mom of a two-month-old, and a working mom juggling her two-year-old and a busy work-travel schedule. As a working mom, nearly fourteen years into this deal, I found it fascinating that the common thread each women—including myself—grappled with on almost a daily basis is our mom guilt. Our guilt comes in all sort of shapes and sizes but underlying it is a deep sense of anxiety. Even more incredible is that as moms we didn’t just have guilt about the things we actually might have screwed up like yelling at our kids, spending too much time on the road, over-mothering, under-mothering but we actually already have guilt about the things we think we might screw up, like how am I going to make this all work when the baby gets here, when I have more than one baby, when my husband and I both have to travel for work, the list is endless. It’s an incredible amount of pressure we put on our own damned selves as mothers.

Mom-guilt is out short-hand for all the terrible ways we beat ourselves up as moms. It’s basically socially acceptable self-flagellation. And it has to stop.

Now I’m not naïve enough to think that us moms are going to stop being anxious about our parenting. It is just part of the deal of being responsible for creating and guiding a human-being. Having those thoughts is out of our control. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. Drinking doesn’t do the trick either—believe me I’ve given that a shot as well. But I do believe that we can create a new framework in which our anxiety can exist that is a positive affirmation of what great moms we are instead of going to the dark place.

At the heart of our mom-guilt is a kernel of something really amazing. Rolled up inside that thick blanket of self-doubt is our powerful desire to be THE BEST MOM EVER! Sort of good isn’t good enough. Not for our little humans. We demand perfection of ourselves because there isn’t anything else on this planet more important to us than our children. And that, ladies, is a beautiful thing. It’s our most noble aspiration. Every other job we do, title we hold, or accomplishment we achieve pales in comparison to our roles as mothers.

So next time your mind starts spinning with crazy thoughts and you are mom-shame spiraling straight down to guilt-town, I want you to stop, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that perfection is a lie, that you are the best mom you can possibly be, those nasty doubts are just affirmations of how important motherhood is to you and that you are, in fact, good enough.