Mommy Guilt Explored

Every mother experiences mommy guilt at one point or another. Whether a mom decides to stay home or go back to work, the guilt is there. Seeing as I have done both, I feel like I can speak of both, from my point of view of course. First I'll talk about staying home. I stayed home for a year with both of my children, which I'm grateful for, I know that sometimes it feels like I don't appreciate the time that I got to spend with them, but that guilt is to be saved for later in the conversation. While I stayed home with Cole and Olivia, while I did love being able to spend time with them while they grew up and had all their firsts, I found that I really missed my job. I missed working and contributing financially and just having that fulfillment that comes with working. And I'm sure that some of you will think that I should have gotten that fulfillment from my children, and I do! I loved watching them grow and  experiencing all the first's. It's kind of a vicious cycle of guilt. First it starts out with something innocent like 'man, I miss adult conversations.' Then it graduates to, 'When I was working I used to have so much fun there' (even if you hated your job at the time). Then you catch yourself wishing you could go back to work and start to feel terrible about it. How could you possibly want to leave your precious little baby? Maybe because you're tired of getting puked, peed, pooped on all day. Sick to death of Dora the explorer (where are her parents by the way? And why is she allowed to wander around the jungle all day? And don't even get me started on Diego who teaches little kids to hug jaguars!). You've lost yourself in the everyday shuffle of momhood. The daily routine of diapers, feedings, nap, picking up toys, lunch, picking up toys, naps, dinner, picking up toys and so on and so forth. You, if you're anything like I was, start to feel like 'why should I pick up the toys for the 15th time? You're just going to make a mess in 36 seconds anyway!' Until of course you trip and about break your neck on one of those stupid toys and then you're cursing yourself for not picking it up.
Staying at home and wishing you were somewhere, anywhere else is enough to make any mom feel guilty. It's just that sometimes you need to get away. Sometimes, you need a break. We push ourselves so hard all the time, and sometimes, you just need to sit your fat ass on the couch and watch lame reality tv and let the laundry sit there for 15 minutes. It's not going anywhere, it's not hurting anyone or anything, but I might if I don't get to take a breather for a second! Then of course, my mind starts to beat me up. Why am I not playing with the kids all day? Why am I not a better housewife? (Well, technically now it would be house-girlfriend.) If I don't stop that thought process in it's tracks, then I'll be a hot mess in about 4 minutes. I could only take being at home for so long before I had to go back to work. I just had to. Think what you want about me, I'm woman enough to admit I'm no Betty Crocker.
So that brings me to the guilt that comes with going back to work. I decided to go back to work after Cole had his first birthday. Olivia was about a year and half when I went back to work. It would have been sooner had I not lived in the middle of nowhere previously. After the divorce, I didn't have a choice but to go back to work. But that's a whole separate blog post! Anyway, with each of them the guilt was the same. Even though with Olivia, I knew that I would eventually need to go back to work, it was still hard. I feel terrible that someone else is teaching my children to do things. I feel terrible that sometimes, I'm not there to put them to bed. I'm lucky enough now to have a job where I can be there in the mornings to get them ready for school, but sometimes I have to stay late, so I'm not always there for bedtime. I know deep down, that this is what I have to do to help support them and give them the life that I want them to have. It doesn't stop me from feeling guilty that I'm not with them all the time. It's not really possible though. At some point, I have to let go and let them go to school and learn and be independent and blah blah blah. That day is not today though. Today, they are still my little babies and I just want to be there for everything. I want to be the one to calm them down when their having a fit, the one to discipline them, the one to tuck them in every night after they do their homework. The reality is that you can't always be there. I can't always be there to do all of those things. And if I stayed home, I wouldn't be able to afford a house to put them to bed in. I wouldn't really be happy anyway. I understand that I need more from myself. Plus I hate to cook....and clean.....and everything else that comes with a stay at home mom. I'm working on the guilt factor, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't ever go away. It's just going to be different things to feel guilty about. Like, man, I feel terrible I just embarrassed them in front of all their friends like that.  Or I can't believe I told Cole's first girlfriend about the time he peed off the front porch in front of the whole neighborhood. I just feel awful. At least there is hope that someday, I get to enjoy that guilt. Even if it's just a little.