The truth about mum guilt

No matter You try. No matter how much you love or do or care, mum guilt, come find you. Here's my thoughts.

Mum guilt will come for you, it comes for us all. No matter the choices that you make, how you choose to parent or how much you try to outrun it. All of us at some point will be smacked in the face by guilt.

What I want you to know is that mum guilt comes to find the good mums too. Because it comes to find us all. So the first thing to recognise is: feeling guilty doesn’t make you a bad parent. In fact, it probably means you’re the opposite. You feel it because you care so damn much.

It might not surprise you to read that when it comes to my baby, I feel some sort of guilt nearly every day. I've never cared about anything more. About being a good enough mother to my child. And I've also never found anything harder. Motherhood consumes me. In a good way, and also sometimes in a way that fundamentally depletes me. I'm tired. Exhausted even. And sometimes I just want to check out.

Sometimes I feel guilt about everything. About how much I interact with my son. How present I am with him. How much time we spend together. How much I play with him. What, and when, he eats. How much he sleeps. I ask myself if I give him what he needs?

Am I enough? Am I doing anything to damage our bond? Is he okay? AM I OKAY? Motherhood is a mindfuck sometimes!

I've had to repeatedly remind myself that our children don’t need us to be perfect. Because no one is. What they do need is love and connection. And they also need mothers who take care of themselves too. Who have boundaries. Who prioritise their own needs. As the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

I'm afraid this post doesn’t have the answers in solving mum guilt! Because I don’t know if you can. But it is a reminder to not trust those voices questioning your worth, whether you’re good enough, asking you to doubt yourself. Don't trust those voices, or those thoughts. Don't take them at face value. Especially after a bad night. Or a long week.

Remember that you’re doing your best, in a world that often asks you to give to everyone, before you give to anything to yourself. In a world that doesn’t respect or appreciate the role of mothers, how hard it is, how much you’re trying to juggle and how we weren’t meant to do this alone.

Maybe you’ve haven’t had a full months’ sleep in months or years. Maybe you’re parenting alone, all or most of the time. Maybe you’re working and juggling work and parenting. Maybe you’re constantly doing more than you have capacity for, but you do it anyway.

Remember doing your best has to be good enough. Remember that you’re not supposed to do everything perfectly, because that’s impossible. Sometimes, some things have to slip. Sometimes it’s screen time and pesto pasta. Again. Sometimes it’s the path of least resistance. So maybe next time mum guilt comes to find you, acknowledge her. Maybe even say hey. Then bid her well, sending her on her merry way.

Because your baby has you, and you are enough.