Thoughts on mommy guilt, and why I'm trying to let go of it.

Mommy guilt.  It's a popular concept these days!  I think about it all the time as I learn from other mamas on their blogs, and talk with my mama friends, and as I navigate parenting a little person myself these days.  Maybe it comes from a place of comparison, that this mama never lets her kid watch tv.  Or this mama only feeds organic.  Or this mama takes her kid to library time every week.  It's easy to start to compare myself to mamas I've never met, and to those I know well.  And even to judge other mamas (gasp) - to think "I'd never do it that way!" or "Shouldn't she be doing _____?" or "Why isn't that baby in his own room yet?"  It's seriously endless.

And I watch my other mama friends do the same thing.  Just yesterday one of my nearest & dearest, who is a really great mom, started to explain to me why she was letting her toddler watch tv.  I stopped her before she was too far in and told her, "Who cares?! If it gives you a break for a few minutes of your day, it's fine!  She's perfectly healthy and there's nothing wrong with watching a tv show so you can catch up on the phone or start dinner!"  And then we were talking about tantrums & our sweet little angels turning into demons, and she asked me if Brady was really "expressing" himself lately.  I kind of held my head up a little higher as I exclaimed how he really hasn't started that behavior yet (pat on the back).  And then he rewarded me for my honesty an hour later, by screaming so emphatically that my ears actually hurt, and then throwing himself onto the kitchen floor.  Humility at its best.

Listen up, mamas.  Here's the honest truth.  We are not perfect & we can't raise our babies perfectly, and we need to let go of that standard.  For ourselves & for other girls raising babies. It's ridiculous, and we are killing ourselves by holding onto it.  We're missing the point.

Some days I can't wait til Brady WILL sit for 0.5 seconds and watch tv.  Oh the things I could get done if uninterrupted for 15 minutes!  I try to buy organic from our local grocery when it's affordable or available, but I don't make separate trips to Whole Foods or Sprouts.  And to be honest, the last two times I paid for more expensive organic raspberries, they molded in the fridge in two days and I had to make a separate trip back to the grocery TWICE to buy...drumroll please...non organic ones.  Some days it's enough to get out on one walk around the block, and sometimes the park is boring and I don't feel like going and doing the same thing (peeling him off the slide as he tries to climb UP, saving him from near death as he backs himself off the top of the equipment once he's climbed up the stairs) over & over & over again.  Sometimes I dread seeing the monitor light up when he's up from his nap.  Just twenty more minutes baby!  Sometimes I think reading the same book for the eighth time that hour is annoying, and I get super frustrated that he's throwing food on the floor & I'm taking his tray away for the gazillionth time.  Is he even going to gain weight at this point?!

But here's the thing - with mommy guilt, you are damned if you do-damned if you don't.  There's no winning the battle if you enter into it.  The reasons for feeling guilty are never ending when you're a parent.  There's always someone who does it differently. And I still have seventeen years of him being my responsibility to go!!  What I do well with my kiddo may not be something you prioritize, and vice versa.  And who cares?  The common ground in parenting is love.  You love your baby more than life itself, and so do I.  I may not parent the same way, but I love my child no less than you love yours.

He'll be okay on non-organic food.  He'll be okay if he ever learns to sit still & I give him the iPad to watch a movie.  He'll be okay if he doesn't get to go to the park twice a day, or God forbid even twice that week.  He'll be okay if I don't feel like reading books that afternoon when he's really only interested in wrangling himself off my lap one nanosecond in.  He'll be okay if I don't teach him 900 sign language words.  He'll be okay if all he eats for lunch at the restaurant is french fries (hey, I can practically survive on them myself).  He'll be okay if he is a binky-addict.

Because I love him and cherish him and protect him a hundred million times a day.  And I teach him to love dogs and say hi to people and occasionally use some manners.  And I try to let go of my control issues, and let him make a mess and swipe his hand through the ketchup on the way to his hair without stopping him.  And I let him pull all the books out for the millionth time right before he goes up to bed, when all I want is a clean living room.  And I'm trying to get up a little early in the morning so I have some me-time, which starts my day off a better instead of being impatient mommy from the start.  And I'm showing him every day that life isn't perfect, and I'm not perfect, and we are all learning as we go.

I'll end with this.  I'm a good mom.  I'm really good at this.  I don't do everything the way you do, and you don't do everything how I might.  But I'm a good mama to Brady.  And you're a good mom too.  You love those babies & you do the best you can & sometimes you lose your patience and mess up, but you're not messing them up.  Because you show up for them every day and love them even when they annoy you, and you hide in the bathroom sometimes but you also ruffle their hair & kiss their owies & you tell them you're proud of them...and I think that's the best kind of mama there is.  

So well done, mama warrior.  Stop comparing.  Start offering grace to other mamas instead.  After all, they may still be suffering under the weight of their own mommy guilt.