When Mom Guilt Kicks In

Mom guilt is real.

It’s a fact for most mothers. It hits us when we need it the least, settles in and cracks our hearts. Your child falls. Their head hits the bottom corner of your coffee table within the blink of an eye. And instantly you feel like the worst person on the planet. In addition to nearly crying with your screaming baby, your can’t help but swell up with a trillion ideas on how you could have prevented the situation from happening in the first place. An instance that is now in the past–it’s over–all that matters now is the comfort and well being of your child. Yet we moms can only think “What if…”, we grab our babes, cuddle, and think “If only I had just…”.

To someone who isn’t a mother, this could simply be disregarded as dramatic overthinking. However, I think once one becomes a mother, the feeling of anxiety gets programmed into their DNA and is meant to go hay wire the second something starts to go wrong. Guilt can be assessed on a spectrum: there’s guilt on the far left, guilt on the far right and more guilt in between. Do you find yourself on the spectrum?

When we’re confused, our bodies have funny ways of coping during tough situations.

Many responses happen to be very instinctively and others just plain rash and unhelpful. So, I’ve created a list of the most helpful and sensible ways to react when mommy guilt it kicks in, that has worked from my experience.

1. Accept your feelings for what they are

Right now you may be feeling a sense of shame or pain in something that has happened to you or your child. This is where your fight or flight reaction shines. If you’re like me, you take the time to wallow in the guilt and replay the scenario over and over again, regardless if this is a situation of me wanting time alone or freaking out about my baby taking a spill on the carpet.

Then there are others who instinctively fight. No, I don’t mean literally fight with yourself or your baby, but rather fight for a healthier mind set. The best way to initiate combating these thoughts and fears is to accept them as possibilities. Yes, your baby just fell. Yes you’re going to get that alone time, and you may very well enjoy it and forget about your baby all together, but in order to move past these unforgiving thoughts you need to not shame yourself.

Do not let the guilt turn into shame.

Remind yourself that your moral character is never in question. These scenarios occur based off of actions and decisions alone. You are not a bad mother because something happened that you didn’t plan on or stop from occurring. If you go on to blame who you are as a person then the guilt going to manifest itself into something beyond what it truly is.

2. Be prepared to analyze how you reacted

Just this past week my daughter fell ill with a terrible stomach bug. We were trying to get back into our normal routine, but because she’s still feeling nauseous it’s made her a bit wobbly and weaker during play time. I told myself that I should reposition the couch and move it closer to the foam mat because it shifted. Well, I never did it. And not even 30 minutes later my baby was clinging onto the couch and lost her grip, fell backwards and smacked her head– half on the mat and half on the tile flooring.

I felt horrible, blaming myself for the entire situation.

Instantly I thought, If only I’d moved the couch or didn’t allow her to play as normal because she’s sick...

I figured that would have prevented all the hurt for the both of us.

At first this may seem hypocritical of the step above, but there’s a distinction between the two. Wallowing in your sorrows is certainly not the same as taking a step back to asses what just happened, that would mean that no progress had been made and that the only thoughts would be of those demeaning you as a person.

In order to analyze our levels of guilt, like all measurements, we need a scale and there is one for this exact exercise. The Taxonomy of Guilt was created by a professor of psychological and brain sciences, Susan Whitbourne, at UMASS Amherst.

“Guilt comes in many forms. But when all is said and done, it can be boiled down to a set of five basic types.”

With that said, here are the 5 types of guilt and their causes, as developed by Whitbourne:

• Superstitious Guilt: This is felt after you believe to have set something in motion, for example wishing ill on somebody and then finding out they’re in the hospital a week later.
• Survivors Guilt: Not having suffered the way that others have.
• Self Guilt: About something you did.
• Scarcity Guilt: Referred to as caregivers guilt, most mom guilt lands in this category. It’s felt when you think you’ve not done enough for someone in need.
• Fantasy Guilt: This happens when you feel guilty for something you haven’t done

Applying the scale to help asses which level of guilt I felt when my daughter fell is fairly simple. In that moment I was feeling superstitious guilt because of having the thought of an accident happening without my moving the couch, which at the time I believed her fall was my fault for not preventing a hypothetical issue. Without assessing, this could easily be blamed on Self Guilt. However, when you separate your feelings and morals in question, from your actions and thoughts, you can clearly see which level this scenario lands under.

3. Say bye-bye to choosing self esteem over acceptance

This is going to be short and sweet. As humans, to survive an unsatisfied mentality our brains compensate for a lack in proud moments and thoughts, by choosing to not focus on the negative aspects of ourselves. This becomes an issue when something bad happens to us or our children because we tend to expose those feelings when we’re already down. It seems to be human nature to beat ourselves up more than we need to and saving those negative impressions of ourselves is the worst (but best) way to do that.

What do I mean by choosing self acceptance over self esteem? Simple.

The moment you make a mistake or do something wrong, learn from it, tell yourself it will be okay and move on.

Acting perfect and presuming nothing ever goes wrong in your life is going to make things that much harder when it comes time to admit your concerning thoughts. This is because it will be much harder to discuss a plethora of problems of your own with someone you’ve never brought them up to before. Labels never settle well so stop calling yourself “good” or “bad,” yet just look to yourself with an open heart and let things be.

Find solace in knowing that you will never be perfect, nobody ever is, but you are enough and that is exactly what matters.

Finding self-acceptance can take days, weeks, months, or years and sometimes people go an entire life time without discovering it within themselves. Take a few moments to try this next step to help kick start your self acceptance journey.

4. Be your own cheerleader

Who needs a BF when you have a confident outlook on yourself. Self-confidence is one of those things that is ALWAYS easier said than done. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

There is one simple exercise that will help you cope with self inflicted guilt. It will also encourage you to feel more confidence as a mother! Remember back in middle school health class, or when you were talking to your schools counselor, and they told you how to give self affirmations? In a way this is just like that, but from a more concentrated perspective.

Grab a pen and a paper. If you’re feeding a baby or too tired to get up, simply use your phone, or do this in your head. First, make a list of 5 positive things you’ve done for your baby or children today. This can be anything from preparing their favorite meal to changing their diaper the moment you noticed it was dirty…anything. It doesn’t have to be anything grand, just the great things that make you a mother. Maybe you bought your son a new toy or cleaned the floors in your daughters room. Easy right? Keep going, write five more.

Is it all starting to flow now? Maybe today was a day about you and you’re having a hard time thinking of things. If so, write down what you did today to help yourself be a better person, like taking a shower to rejuvenate yourself to be peppier when taking care of your littles (or taking a break to read a book to calm your stress so that you’re more positive when addressing your family). All of these things matter and are GOOD!

Next I want you to take a minute and realize the impact each of those actions has.

A pretty big impact, and an important one at that!

“Often we don’t thank ourselves for the good things, rather we spend too much time focusing on the negative.”

The society we live in has programmed our brains to over think the negative aspects of our day to day life. Really think about it. Each morning and night we hear tragedy after tragedy on the news leaving room for maybe one happy story during the news reel. How often do you leave a review for a business when you’ve had a positive experience? Not that often, right? But what if someone has done you wrong? You’re all over that! That business will never sell another cupcake to anyone if you have anything to do about it (by the way, they gave you blue frosting instead of pink…yeah I know, people).

And guess what, we do the exact same thing to our self esteems.

We need to give our awesome mom brains more credit for doing the dishes later rather than not at all. Thank yourself for deciding to pick up the minefield of legos your child left for you “play” with. Thank you for doing what you do! You’re awesome and have a lot more successes to focus on than you know.

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