Guilt: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Have you ever wondered why the phrase is “Mom Guilt” and not “Dad Guilt”? No? Just me then, huh? Well let’s all pretend that you answered yes to that. Otherwise, the whole start to the blog is kind of killed and I have to start over and who has the time for that right now? I can tell you that it’s definitely not me. I don’t even have time to divide myself into the 3 people I need to be in order to take care of the work work and the home work and the kid work. Hence the old guilt trip.

As yes, the one trip that I take daily that requires no airfare at all.

Back in the “good old days”, Mom’s job was at home all day. Dad went to work and brought home the bacon. (I’m actually a little jealous of all the bacon they used to have in the old days. Back then, bacon wasn’t bad for you at all! Can you believe it?) Somewhere along the line, women decided that we also needed to bring home the bacon. I’m guessing that this was probably because of one bad bacon bringer and now we are all being punished for it. Dangit! You had one job bacon bringer. ONE JOB!

If you’re keeping track, that’s one full time job (motherhood) plus another full-time job (work/career) and one part time job (trying to parent your spouse without being obvious about it). I might not be the best at Math, but even I know that one person doing 2.5 jobs all day, every day just doesn’t add up. Well, I mean, it adds up, but not in a good way. Doing 2.5 jobs in 1.0 days leaves not enough time to get everything you need to in one day. So, you split it up over the course of a week, never having quite enough time for anything really. Then you repeat this every week until one day, they finally let you retire and you’re able to enjoy the children of the children that you never got to enjoy because of those 2.5 jobs. (Wow, that got dark quick! Sorry about that. Moving on…)

And if the Math part wasn’t bad enough, society seems to be putting a little too much pressure on us parents. We are supposed to work a full-time job but still manage the house, kids, scheduling, and whatever else seems to fall under our dominion. Our boss will look down on us for taking time off to care for our kids, but society will also make us feel bad if we don’t make our kids a priority above all else. We need to be there all the time for our kids yet teach them autonomy. We need to show them that you can be a productive member of society yet spend every other waking minute doting on them. Basically, society expects all the things, all the time and it’s just freaking exhausting.

Plus, Moms don’t need any help smacking ourselves in the face with the guilt shovel. We excel at heaping piles of guilt upon ourselves, without any outside help at all. We worry about all the different and varied ways that we may be screwing up our children. (Which, somehow, we probably are. But in our defense, it’s not purposeful.) We worry about spending enough time with them. We feel bad if we aren’t giving them good childhood memories for them to look back fondly on. We stress about all the nutrition that we know they aren’t getting from their staunch peanut butter sandwich and chicken nugget diet. We think of ways to sneak in life lessons. We balance sports schedules and bathing routines and sit-down family meals. I think that most moms become so adept at juggling that they should be able to put it on their resume in case the circus ever comes to town. (Except those clowns can be a little creepy so maybe scratch that idea.)

As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, we now have to worry about sending our kids to school. Will they be safe? Should I home school? Am I a bad parent if I HAVE to work and send my child to public school? The world that we live in has become utter chaos and it’s scary enough to think that one day you will leave your child alone to fend for themselves (even if it’s not until they’re like 60) without adding the cosmic black hole that society seems to be hurtling toward. (Oops, slipped back into that dark humor again. Sorry about that.)

 I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s fine to ignore your kids. That’s what the grandkids are for. You can make up for it then. KIDDING. KIDDING.

What I mean to say is that all we can ever do is our best. Sure, it’s probably not enough some days, but it will be on others. All we can do is try to balance all the spinning plates without dropping them and having them all go crashing to the floor. And if you do happen to drop them, just make sure they’re the ugly ones and not the good china.

 

  

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