Divorced Moms Without Guilt

I think it’s only appropriate that I introduce this guest post by my friend and fellow working mom Jessica as I suffer a wee bit of insomnia from a mind that won’t stop racing.

I met Jessica at BlogHer and found her both hilarious and refreshingly open-hearted. She just warmed up to me right away, like kids do in elementary school when they make instant friends on the first day of school and really mean it. What happens to that? We close up as we age. Not Jessica, though.

Anyhow, Jessica’s blog provides wonderful, funny snippets of her life as a divorced mom without guilt. Her web series is Bern This, “a neurotic woman’s journey through her weekly visits to her therapist.” Think Curb Your Enthusiasm starring a divorced mom instead of Larry David. And on with her guest post …

When I met Susan, a fellow blogger, and she told me the name of her site was workingmomsagainstguilt.com, my first reaction was,

JESSICA: I don’t have any. I love my kid but if I didn’t work, the only way she’d see me is if my ex was willing to schlep her to the place where mommy sat and drew pictures all day and mumbled things to herself like:JESSICA: (mumbling) When’s lunch? Could someone please pass me the stapler? What time is my interview?
Without going into detail, Susan is happily married while alas I am not, which is why I’m writing this post entitled:

DIVORCED MOMS WITHOUT GUILT
Before I go on, I would like to inform you that I am, in fact, an expert on this topic as:
1. I’m a mother
2. I’m divorced
and
3. I no longer feel guilty about it.

In the beginning, every time my daughter got sick, refused to put on both socks or insisted on wearing an outfit which made her look like it was her first day at CLOWN school, I would immediately think:

JESSICA’S THOUGHT: It’s the divorce.

As if children who lived with both parents never got ill, always wore an even amount of footwear and had a great sense of style. But over time, I realized that nothing could be worse than a child living in a household where every time daddy ate an apple all mommy wanted to do was clock him.

I’m not going to say that after 14 years it was so great getting out there and meeting man after man who carried so much psychological baggage it came in a ten piece set or that the guy I called my husband for over a decade is now most often referred to as my sperm donor, but I think my daughter would be proud that mommy chose her over ten years for involuntary manslaughter and the fact that is I didn’t just take the proverbial lemons and make them into lemonade. I also made a pie, a dessert bar AND two dozen cookies. Guilty? No. Hungry? Yes.

2 thoughts on “Divorced Moms Without Guilt

  1. Where I’m at right now in my life – working mom going through a divorce, wracked with guilt – I very much appreciate this.

    I look forward to reading Jessica’s blog for help on that guilt thing.

  2. As a newly divorced, working mom of a 2 year old, I can’t thank you enough for your post!

    The balancing act I have found myself in between mom, work, school, and something called a social life, is beyond taxing! I’m glad to know I’m not alone!

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