Motherhood

My son was about 13-14 months old. My husband had just left for Germany. I didn’t know when we would join him. My son slept every night from 7pm-7am. It was nice. Except…I couldn’t fall asleep until 3am because of all the stress and crap that was happening as we were trying to get over to join my husband in Germany.

So what did I do? I put on Elmo and put him in the Pack N Play. I was able to nap for an hour in order to have the energy to get through the day with my toddler. It was then I learned that sometimes as a mom you have to do what you need to do to get through the day. It might not be the best thing, it might not be something that is suggested in parenting books, but I knew at the end of the day it was not going to harm my child and that I needed to do it to get through the day.

I have always been for natural birth. I started reading about it before I even got pregnant. I worked as a doula. I saw first hand the difference in births and natural was what I wanted. I had my first two babies 100% naturally and wouldn’t have had it any other day. Then I got pregnant for the third time and I just didn’t feel as strongly about it. I was tired. I was older and I knew at the end of the day it was going to be okay, whatever I decided to do. So when it came time to have baby #3, I went for the epidural. It was a fast birth. It really wasn’t that different from my other births except for the pushing part. The epidural helped with that. They told me it didn’t have time to kick in but I know it did. I could tell.

I always wanted to breastfeed. I thought it would come very naturally to me and I would enjoy it. Nope. With my oldest we had to basically feed him with a syringe for the first few days. And once he did figure it out, I realized I really didn’t like it too much. I kept going. I went as long as I could, 17 months. Then babies #2 and #3 came. Ben was gone. The support I had with #1 wasn’t there. So I eventually switched to formula with them before they were a year old.

I could go on an on. There are a lot of reasons I could feel guilty about my parenting. There are a lot of things I have done I never thought I would do. There have been tearful days where I just wasn’t sure I was doing anything right.

There are so many reasons why a mom could feel guilty. There are so many ways we don’t measure up. There are many things we could do differently. While I think it is important to always grow as a person and as a mother and to make sure we are on the right path, doing what we need to do for our kids, we also need to let some of that mom guilt go.

The fact is, there are many different ways to raise a child. Most of them all lead to the same place, healthy and well-adjusted adults. I think when we start to worry about every little choice, we make motherhood harder than it needs to be. I try to remind myself of that when I feel guilty for something little, something that really doesn’t matter much. I try not to focus on being a perfect mother, I focus on doing the right thing for my own children and not worrying so much about the little things. Or the fact that I don’t always get it 100% right. Because I know I fail sometimes.

At the end of the day we moms are doing our best. We love our kids and want the best for them. We do what we think is right with the information we have at the time. We should learn from our mistakes but we need to let go of all the guilt that comes with them. I think if we can do that, it will make for a much better life.

Do you struggle with mom guilt? How do you let it go?

I grew up with a stay at home mom. She was 33 when she had me and had already worked many years as a teacher. When I was in the 5th grade she went back as a full-time teacher for a year and then substituted after that until last year when she decided to join my Dad in retirement.

I am not sure if she is the reason why I did things the way I did. I knew I wanted to finish college before I got married. That was not something I was willing to compromise on. I got engaged at my graduation party and married 8 months later. I was pretty optimistic about my future career. I also had a plan. I would get a job I loved and work for a few years. Then we would have kids and I would become a stay at home mom. I didn’t really think much past that. I didn’t think about when I would go back to work. I just knew that I wanted to be a stay at home mom.

I wasn’t able to find a job in my career field that paid enough. They wanted someone with a Masters or someone who spoke spanish. I ended up working for a temp agency making more than I would have in some of the jobs I came across that would use my degree. Sociology is a degree but there isn’t much if you only have your BA.

I worked for about 2.5 years before my son was born and I finally got what I wanted. I was able to be a stay at home mom. We lived in a townhouse in the same city I had lived in for college, right where my husband grew up. When I quit my job I was selling books on Ebay. This brought in a little bit of money. After we moved to Kentucky, I added children’s clothing and got really into it. I was making a part-time income but it was busy and my mom helped out a lot from California as she would help shop for clothes I could sell.

Then, we moved to Germany. You can’t sell on Ebay in Germany so I closed up that business and was a stay at home mom until we moved back to the states in 2010. By then I had two boys and was pregnant with my third. I didn’t think I could do Ebay again, not the way I was doing it before so I focused on some other things. I had started my blog and was starting to get more interest in that.

Ever since 2010 I have been making money from home in one form or another. I love it. I love that I have something to focus on. I love that I have my own career and that I can do it around my kids, although that is very difficult sometimes. It’s much easier when all of them are in school on certain days. I am never ever bored because between the house, the kids and my work, there is always something to do.

At the moment I am a mix between the stay at home mom who takes care of the house and the work at home mom who is making some money. My husband works full-time out of the house.  It’s very traditional looking. Yet, I don’t see myself that way. My husband was the stay at home Dad and I was working from home for part of 2014. I have good friends that are working moms. I don’t think one way is better than any other. You have to do what works for your family at the time.

And I am only 35…I have a lot of time. I can go back to school. I can grow my writing career. I feel like I have a lot of room to do something different in a few years if I want to.

What about you? Are you a SAHM? Do you work from home? Do you work outside the house? What’s your ideal?

I have been a mom now for over 10 years. 2004 was the year that changed everything. I first became pregnant in January and had a little boy the end of September. I was 25 and hand a handful of friends who already had kids. My sister-in-law already had three girls and my husband’s cousins all had children as well.

I also liked to read a lot about birth, pregnancy and parenting. I was on a few online forums and email lists where it came up. I felt like I was pretty prepared when my son was born. I was no expert but I had a general idea of how I wanted things to go.

Over the years I have changed my thinking on somethings and held strong to others. I realized that most of us moms are just trying to do the best we can, even if that looks different in each family. As I look back over the last 10 years I think about what I would do differently and what I would do if I was given the chance to do it all again.

1) Winter babies- I don’t like having winter babies. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal if we lived in California or something but I don’t like having babies in the winter. When #2 came along in Germany, he got RSV. I decided I didn’t want to risk having another baby born around that time of the year. Then #3 was born in November. Luckily he did not get RSV. I don’t like that outside parties are just not an option for two of my three boys. So if I was doing it all over again, I would want them born in the spring or the summer.

2) Breastfeeding- I thought I would love breastfeeding and it would be easy. It wasn’t. I tried hard and was able to breastfeed my oldest until he was 17 months old. I wish I could have done that with my other two. It isn’t something I really feel guilt over. They were just fine on formula and I was able to breastfeed them 6 and 9 months. I just wish I had more support or found support when they were new. I think that really would have helped. Then I think, does it really matter? No, not really but it is something I wish I could have done differently.

3) No labels- Attachment parent, mainstream parent, crunchy parent, soggy parent, strict parent, etc etc. I hate that we have to put mothering in a check box. I just want to be who I am. If sometimes that looks like an attachment parent, that is cool. If other times I appear mainstream, that is cool too. I think what happens is that we want to find our tribe, a place to belong, a place where we will not be made fun of for making different choices. And that is a good thing. The problem is that for most people, your parenting doesn’t just fit in a box. Because I don’t CIO I only feed my child organic food? No, real life doesn’t work like that. At least that has been my experience. When we have all these labels it is easy to stop doing what is best for your child and trying to check all the boxes so that you can be included in the group. So doing it over again, I would have ignored all the labels and just focused on what my child needed. Even if that made me a hybrid.

4) Birthing Center– I had my oldest son at a birth center in California. It was such a great experience for us. I wish I could have had my other two that way. On the other hand, having them born in a German hospital and a Military hospital were interesting experiences. I am not sure I would want to change those.

What about you? What would you change about pregnancy, birth or parenting? 

It is hard to be a parent without feeling guilty at some point. It starts when you are pregnant and never really goes away. For some reason we all want to be the perfect parent. We don’t want to make any mistakes. We want to do it all right and we don’t want to be judged.

No matter what choices you make, there is always someone out there that would say you are making the wrong one. You really can’t win. For every parenting choice you make, there are a ton of articles out there that say you are wrong and just as many saying you are right.

What’s a parent to do about all that?

I think we should ignore it!

If I could do anything over again it would be to do what I feel is right and NOT feel any guilt for it. This is hard though. We moms want to know that we are making the right choices and sometimes it is hard to know what that is.

I always wanted to breastfeed. I worked so hard to do to it with my oldest and we made it to 17 months. So when I was faced with a decision to give my 2nd little boy formula at 9 months because he wasn’t growing like he should, I did what I thought was best. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I wasn’t. I don’t know. I know that once he started getting the formula he started gaining weight.

Did I feel guilty about that? Yes. Should I have? Probably not. Although I still think breastfeeding is the best way to go, sometimes formula is needed and sometimes it is just the way it needs to be. Does that kick me out of the pro-breastfeeding club? Maybe, but I have learned that it really doesn’t matter.

Guilt comes at all different times on our parenting journey. Sometime it is warranted yes, most of the time it isn’t.

How should a mom decide what is right and what is wrong? How are we supposed to know what to do? It is easy to have parenting ideals but what if they don’t add up to reality? What if life gets in the way? How do we know what we should hold onto and what we can let go?

When it comes to my kids these days, I try to do what is best. I try to do what is right. I read advice about what different people have done and go from there. And depending on the situation, sometimes I am okay with being wrong. Of learning a lesson through it. Because sometimes, it is really hard to know what is best for your child on a particular issue. And no one else can really tell you either.

So when guilt comes up, look at why you feel that way. Are you doing the best you can? If so, there is no reason to feel so guilty about things. I don’t think our goal should be to become a perfect parent.

I think our goal should be to be a good parent to the children we each have. And that is nothing we should feel guilty about.

Do you struggle with feeling guilty as a parent? How do you deal with that?