The truth about mom guilt is that it doesn’t have to take over your life. You get to make decisions to overcome this feeling of guilt that has pervaded our society.
Mom guilt comes in many shapes and sizes. It’s common to feel this guilt when you don’t give in to what the kiddos want or have to leave them to head off to work a job.
While the typical daily mom guilt is not uncommon, for some moms, it goes deeper. Guilt is something that, for many, becomes a twisted, intertwined feeling that comes from childhood it is almost impossible to sort out what is real and what is being carried over with this core distressing emotion. This can be especially true as many religious practices involve the glorification of feeling guilty.
It can be difficult to understand the difference between feelings of shame and guilt. Shame comes from feeling wrong for who you are innately, and guilt stems from feeling bad about something you did (or didn’t) do. Either way, they both contribute to the term “mom guilt,” as it is known in the mom community.
Deeper-Rooted Mom Guilt
For some moms, feeling guilt isn’t just about daily actions, feelings, or comments from the littles. It may be something stemming from your childhood that you may not even be aware of. Perhaps you didn’t plan on having kids or are a working mom who can’t be a stay-at-home mom. Being a working mom in today’s world presents unrealistic expectations based on social media. This somewhat new phenomenon presents the idea that being a good mom means doing all the things all the time.
What does it really mean to be a good mom, especially if you never planned on being a mom in the first place? Without that vision and desire, it’s a little more challenging to feel confident in the decisions you make.
It’s important to consider this “mommy guilt.” It can come through in parenting in many unexpected ways. Your kids may feel like a burden or have pent-up resentment that shows up in the energy of the relationship. The truth is, simply being honest, open, and vulnerable about this reality is exactly what minimizes the impact that these feelings can have on both mom and the kids.
Societal Impacted Mom Guilt
Now, let’s think about how much the expectation to be the perfect mom really comes from your own feelings versus from societal pressures. Since the beginning of time, or at least the early 1900s, there was a vision of what a good mother is and is not. These ideas still fuel the feeling of parent guilt and negative self-talk on a daily basis.
Movies and shows based in the 1950s give a great snapshot of what typical moms were expected to do. Keeping a clean house, cooking and baking, and doing it all with perfectly curled hair, a pressed dress, and pumps. A few years later, this shifted as women became a more integral part of the working community. However, instead of sharing those home tasks, moms were taking on working outside of the home while still fulfilling all of the home tasks at the same time.
This is the time when an impossible standard was created. A standard that had moms unable to see the way out of feeling guilty as they were trying to do it all, yet were unable to create feelings of pride in all they were truly accomplishing as a result of the neverending seeping feelings of guilt. Being home less and less with growing hours at work, unable to be home with sick kiddos when they needed her most, and feelings of inadequacy for taking time off of work as it typically came with shifting the burden of work tasks onto a coworker.
Moms Can Do It All
In truth, moms can do it all. However, it cannot be done in the ways that it has always been done! It requires a shift in how things look and empowering moms to look at how they feel. Simply put, when a mom decides what it is she truly wants and makes every decision to align with that, this world will become a completely different place. Not just for moms, but for this generation of children that need to see that everything in life is just a choice! It doesn’t have to be a certain way because that is how it has always been done.
As millennial moms, we are paving the way for new generations to have choices and go against the grain. To prioritize fulfillment and happiness above all else, recognizing that without these things, nothing else really matters. To soothe and put an end to feeling guilty for prioritizing ourselves first, we are really modeling to our children that inner fulfillment and happiness matter!
Be a part of the change that eradicates the need for mom guilt! Book an Alignment Strategy Session with Liz today to peel back the layers on who you truly are on the inside and how to align your life to let your true self shine!
Want more on how alignment can play a role in being a “good” mom based on your own terms? Go check out The Aligned Mama podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe for updates on newly released episodes!