Here’s a question we recently received from a new reader, followed by our totally non-expert answers:
I honestly found your blog because I googled “guilt” and “working mom”. I’m a recently-back-to-work first time mom and I’ve been feeling incredibly guilty lately that I’m really enjoying being back at work. Yes, it’s a financial necessity, but on the other hand – I just can’t imagine how bored I would be if I stayed at home all day now with my 5-month old.
Why do I feel like this makes me a bad mother? Just throwing it out there….
Thanks for making me feel not so alone…..
Katie
As women, we’re programmed from an early age with certain ideas of what “good mothers” are like. Most of us are taught that good mothers want to be with their children all the time, and have no other priorities in life but their children. We’re told that work is sometimes a necessary evil, but we should want to stay home and dedicate our lives to kids (even if we can’t afford to). After 20+ years of that programming, when we actually become mothers, reality clashes with our preconceived ideas of motherhood.
The truth is, many of us aren’t cut out to stay home full-time with our kids. We need a job or volunteer gig or something outside the home to stay sane, happy, whatever. What’s so terrible about that?
I don’t think we were really “meant” to be solely dedicated to parenthood anyway. In the olden days, kid duties were shared with grandmas, siblings, neighbors, friends, while moms worked in the field or kitchen or wherever. I feel like it’s perfectly natural and good to get help with raising your kids, while you enjoy other activities (including work). I know it’s good for me, and I believe it’s good for my kids, too.
Sara’s Take
I don’t have much advice, only commiseration because I feel like I’ve seen this issue from nearly every side. When I had my first daughter, I worked in a 9-5 office and sent her to daycare after 6 weeks. Guilt. My job also entailed a lot of travel. More guilt – especially because I got to stay in nice hotels and eat at fancy restaurants and pretty much enjoy time off from being a mom. Here’s one thing that helped assuage the guilt, though: my husband was in school and my paycheck helped ensure that our child would enjoy food, shelter and warm clothing.
When my daughter was a year and a half, I started freelancing. It took a couple of months for things to take off, so I got to spend a lot of time alone with her. Yes, I loved it, but I also found taking care of a child all day to be exhausting. I remember looking forward to Sesame Street or packing her up and going to my sister’s house just to ease the monotony. Guess what? I felt guilt. Why didn’t I enjoy this more? Spending more time with my children was a huge reason I’d wanted to freelance in the first place.
Now I have a flexible, work-from-home job that often lets me set my own schedule and allows me even more time to be a mom. I STILL feel guilty. I feel guilty if I steal an afternoon to take my daughters to the park while checking email on my phone. I feel guilty if I can’t play because I have to finish a project. Most recently, my husband got laid off (thanks a lot, economy!!) and I’ve been working even more to keep our finances in order. Guess what? I feel guilty because now HE’s home with the kids, and while I know he adores the girls and I like the idea of my newborn being cared for by her Daddy, I realize what a huge job full-time childcare can be. I don’t want him to feel like losing his job=instant nanny duty.
So what’s the answer? I guess my take is that there will ALWAYS be something to make you feel like a bad mother. When they’re older, I fully expect my daughters to find some reason why I let them down or didn’t do my best or wasn’t a good mom (negative, yes, but I know only a handful of people who don’t have some sort of gripe with their mothers). I’m willing to bet it will have little to do with my work situation and more to do with how I forced my 5-year-old to take ballet or didn’t buy her those Zou Zou Pets she wants so bad right now.
So I try and cut myself some slack. I figure I’ll be getting a guilt trip from my kids, with a little help from society, for the next 20 years or so. I don’t need to be heaping it on myself, as well.
Tela’s Take
I could go on and on and ON, but I won’t. Or maybe I will. Bear with me while I work through this.
Instead, I’ll repeat some ancedotes that I’ve heard from various people that help me when I’m trying to battle the big “G.” For some, work makes them a better, more-focused, well-rounded parent. You know that you aren’t around during the day, so the time you do have with your child, you spend it focused on said child. I know that’s the case with me. Because I have those eight hours at work, I try to enjoy every minute I have at home with him.
In short, because I still am not sure where I’m going with this, I’ll say: happy mom equals happy baby. Even at the newborn stage, I noticed when I was stressed out, my kid cried a lot more. Do the things that will make you happy, and your child will be happy, too. Try not to let it get you down.
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12 thoughts on “Reader Q&A: Why Guilt for Liking to Work?”
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How bored she'd be if she stayed home? Geeze, there's tons of time to blog! 🙂
That's exactly how I found your site too. Thank you for your honest answers, and focusing on how the mother/child feels happy.
I always love what you gals have to say – thanks for another great post. I thought Tela's statement about the firsts being what mom and dad see was great. That was one of the things I worried about when my daughter went to daycare and it worked out just fine.
Excellent!
The source of guilt is expectations? An interesting thing to research from a psychological perspective.
I did find it interesting that you equated your husband's parenting his children during the day as nannying. Unconscious indicator of how we view men–not as parents but as providers who are dads on the side. I don't say that as a criticism but as a curious question.
Daddy Dialect had some interesting things to say about men caring for their children during the day as a growing trend in this economy as more men lose their jobs than women. Check it out.
Excellent blog!
Hey, Rachel! (It's Sara here – just signing in from a different account). Actually, my referring to my husband as a Nanny wasn't really unconscious. Believe me, I recognize how weird it is that I feel this way. One of our friends asked me if men ever worry that their stay-at-home wives feel marginalized or overwhelmed by the full-time childcare. I'm sure most don't. So why is that, when men have to do the duties because they're losing their jobs in this economy, we feel bad for them and worry about how they're handling it? It's a topic for a longer post, but I haven't written much on this blog recently, precisely because my husband doesn't want me discussing our personal issues in public too much.
The great thing about my husband, though, is that he's an excellent, loving and engaged father who does a great job taking care of the kids. I know my older daughter, in particular, really benefited emotionally from being able to spend the summer with him.
I LOVE this. Was just on MomTV with Sarah Burns talking about the "G" word!
http://www.momtv.com/hulashakeplayback.html (episode 8/21/09)
and one of the things we discussed is this:
Guilt means that you're not a present participant in yoru own life! If you're brain is stuck in the past (I can't believe I missed my son's bedtime, I'm the worst mom) or the future (Everyone's going to judge me if I send my nanny to the park), then you're really NOT focused on what's in front of you. Your child, OR your work! When I really started "getting" this in my life, it made a HUGE difference in how I experienced guilt.
I think this is SUCH a hot topic and I'm so glad you're discussing this!
Thank you for the shout out gals : )
One of the topics we discuss in our book is as parents we may have ages and stages of our children we enjoy more or less than others. We think it is true some parents click more with their children during toddlerhood, while others tackle the teen years easily. We think we feel like bad moms because everywhere you turn you can find an expert, article or study pointing a finger or wagging it in your direction. You know what we say to that kind of crap? "So what!" you know yourself, you know your kid, you live with your family. Take in all the expertise, statistics and research and weigh it against what you know and feel.The result will be fabulous for you and your family and we bet you'll feel even better about your motherhood.
Still feeling lousy? How about this stat from our book and research: Moms feel about the same levels of guilt and happiness regardless of employment status. So this means whether you are pulling in a paycheck or pushing a stroller down your street, we're all in this together. (and you can thank us for the High School Musical earworm later!)
Thank you for the shout out gals : )
One of the topics we discuss in our book is as parents we may have ages and stages of our children we enjoy more or less than others. We think it is true some parents click more with their children during toddlerhood, while others tackle the teen years easily. We think we feel like bad moms because everywhere you turn you can find an expert, article or study pointing a finger or wagging it in your direction. You know what we say to that kind of crap? "So what!" you know yourself, you know your kid, you live with your family. Take in all the expertise, statistics and research and weigh it against what you know and feel.The result will be fabulous for you and your family and we bet you'll feel even better about your motherhood.
Still feeling lousy? How about this stat from our book and research: Moms feel about the same levels of guilt and happiness regardless of employment status. So this means whether you are pulling in a paycheck or pushing a stroller down your street, we're all in this together. (and you can thank us for the High School Musical earworm later!)
You have no idea how much your answers have helped me. After staying at home with my son for 2 years and 3 months and trying to work from home at night when he slept, I've recently decided to enroll him in daycare two days a week so I can work more during the day and have just a couple of hours a week to myself. I have felt such guilt over this, and I've been feeling stuck…if I send him, I'm a bad mom because my work and some "me time" is more important than spending time with him or keeping him from getting sick (because he's pretty much lived in a bubble so far and hasn't really been sick much). If I don't send him, I will go crazy. So crazy mom or constant runny nose – either way I'm a bad mom, but reading your responses has made me realize that I'm going to feel guilty no matter what, so I might as well send him, and happy mom = happy baby, and I only feel guilty because I've been programmed that way…so, is there a way to deprogram ourselves from thinking that the only way to be a good mom is to be totally focused on and dedicated to our child and to love every single minute of it?
Thanks for this very informative post! Hope you come up with others.
Andy
http://www.workitmom.com/partners/
I've found in my past 5 years as a mom that when I feel guilt it's because I need to change something. I either need to change my job situation to spend more time with the kids, change the workload to be less stressed, back away from projects, or sometimes, pay more attention to work. There isn't anything wrong with liking work and finding balance, but if your mother guilt is kicking in, it probably means that deep down what you are doing is in conflict with your core values- the thigs that you truly believe matter. I'm not saying stay at home, I'm just saying be creative, give your heart and soul completely into whatever really matters most to you, make some time to take a deep, hard, painful look at what you really believe. You need to be honest with yourself- examine the financial aspects of working, the psychological aspects of working, what you value as a parent, what your kids really need. I think one of the worst traps we set for ourselves as dual income families is setting up our lives around two incomes. We think- we enjoy our work and can't see ourselves leaving- but then something happens- a layoff, a child has permanent or temporary special needs that demand your attention, or you suddenly realize that you want to raise your children hands on- and we're stuck. I've spent the last few years struggling with this myself- when things are working well with childcare, the kids are thriving and work is great, we chug along and make decisions based on two full time professional incomes. Then… when illness strikes, when a child needs more, it becomes a guilt laden juggle and many tears flow. And for what? Did I really make the right decisions? Have I sold out my kids for things that didn't matter to a company that could decide tomorrow they don't need me anymore? I'm not sure. My thoughts on this change daily. But I do know that I need to continue working to rearrange my life so that the second income funds the things that add to life, not the things that sustain it, so that if I change my mind or something happens, I'm fighting my mortgage and my soul simultaneously.
Wow, this is timely for me. I'm struggling with whether or not to stay home, and I really liked Sara's take because I believe it's true — no matter what I do, I'll feel some guilt and misery. Conversely, both working and staying home each have their joys and strengths. Thanks for the post!