How to Overcome the Nagging Mom’s Guilt
What is mom’s guilt and how to overcome it? How does the mom of the year look like? How does success in mothering look like? Amusing questions but many moms’ minds are busy with them. You analyze yourself as a mother and you conclude that you are lagging. Yes, mom’s guilt is silently lingering and echoing in your mind.
The sense of self-analysis and judging yourself from the lens of society is common programming among moms. The verdict of pronouncing yourself as a low-competent mother is a frequent feeling as well. Moms go through moms’ guilt regardless if they are working moms or stay-at-home moms. Every mother concerned about her children goes through the mom’s guilt without balancing that view with the facts and circumstances.
According to a Pew Research survey, 18 % of the part-time working moms and 11% of stay-at-home moms experience the mom’s guilt.
Mom’s guilt is a pervasive feeling of not giving your 100 percent as a mother. It’s a feeling that makes you feel you are not giving your kids enough time and love that your kids deserve. It’s a mixed feeling of anxiousness, incompetence, doubt, uncertainty, and guilt. The mom’s guilt has many reasons that may come from the insecurities of not doing enough or the pressure coming from society. In either way, it leaves mom guilty as a parent.
Feeling it, remaining in this feeling for a longer period, even ignoring it, or being unaware of it may affect your mental health.
Mom’s Guilt Affects Mental Health
Untreated or ignored mom’s guilt can affect mental health in many ways. Guilt can show up in many ways and lead to several mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and dissociation with your kids that in turn affects their mental health and overall personality in many ways and in the long term.
How to Overcome Mom’s Guilt?
Experiencing the mom’s guilt is natural. However, certain reasons trigger it that may come from ignoring your child or other situations. What is dangerous is to remain in this feeling for a long time and become convinced about it. Nonetheless, there are remedies to outgrow these negative feelings and you can always choose those ways.
The Reasons Behind Mom’s Guilt
Sometimes the guilt comes out of our actions. Maybe you don’t realize when and what you are doing to your kids, but the effects and hurt feelings remain with us. Hence, we experience guilt and feel bad about what happened. There may be many reasons and causes for it:
- Impatient or being tough
- Physical or mental violent treatment
- Preferential treatment among kids …etc.
It is essential to analyze its reason and correct it whether it’s coming from within you or from external factors.
Be Reasonable Not to Feel Guilty
Being practical is one of the critical factors you need to incorporate every time you go through the mom’s guilt. When you compare yourself with others, when you see things happening on social media and the depiction of perfect motherhood is on display, you need to ponder if your conditions match what you see?
You live your life, don’t compare, and don’t try to copy others’ models of life while being in your shoes. Managing things does matter but the comparison doesn’t.
Social Impact on Mom’s Guilt
We all need positive energies in our life. If your social circle is those who compare your life to theirs, those who flaunt their motherhood and make you feel unworthy because you are a working mom or pursuing your career, you need to cut them off right away! These are a source of TOXICITY for you.
Make your social interaction with like-minded people with whom you can share your problems and vulnerabilities so they lend you the best pieces of advice. And they can pat your back for the little efforts you make. In a nutshell, block NEGATIVITY.
Be Forgiving Not to Feel Guilty
As long as the past bell is yet ringing in your ears you will never enjoy your present.
If you have made mistakes in your past as a parent, then correct them and get over them. You and your child do not need comments from the peanut gallery of your mind. Learn to forgive and love yourself.
Your connection with your child is naturally unbreakable; you need to align things in a new way.
Listening to Your Child Removes Guilt
Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity, and so is the lifeline of all relationships. Keep the communication window open with your kids. Listen to what they say and what they insinuate. Be emotionally present for them. Talk to them and if you feel sorry about something, you must apologize to them. Every day is a new day. Hence, every new day a new journey starts and counts.
Partnering in Parenting removes Guilt
Devising a protocol between you and your partner is imperative. It’s essential to have your partner on board and be on the same team. You can’t do everything. Hence, dividing and sharing responsibility is vital. You don’t need to follow others’ rules and compare yours with others.
A word from FUJN
- Make the “no distraction” rule while with your kids
- Keep your phone aside IF possible
- Do with your kids Their FAv ACTIVITIES as time allows
- Make a “must-hug rule”. You will love the results!!
- Ask for help. It makes your journey easy
Conclusion
If you are reading this, you must feel good at the same time because guilt is an emotion emanating from care, compassion, and concern. And you have realized that you need a solution to outgrow it. Start a day by instilling freshness in your relationship with your kids. And if your tried all this and the guilt is still inside you, then seek professional help to end it.
By Afsheen khan For Fujn
