Reply to If you don’t feel mom guilt

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "If you don’t feel mom guilt - tell me your mindset "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel mom guilt sometimes, but it's because of my impatient or irritable moments with my child.

I rarely feel the kind of mom guilt you're talking about, where I feel bad for getting a pedicure or waiting until the last minute to pick up my kid from daycare or going to a resort with my DH for a weekend. I firmly agree with Ayelet Waldman who said "love your husband more than your children" and I try to put my marriage first, and to a lesser extent, take care of myself. I've never skipped a shower or meal because of having a child. I'm not a mean or cold mom but I definitely put my needs high up and the needs of my marriage even higher, and I think it is ultimately good for the family to have a nourished mom and a nourished marriage as its foundation. My DD, fwiw, seems extremely happy and secure. We keep it balanced, too -- we don't have a team of nannies raising our children with us jetting off out of sight; we just have regular dates/couple experiences and on family vacations, we tend to do what we want to do (with our kid in tow) rather than trek to Disney World.

I have always felt this way. To be frank, I think it's because - while I had the strong urge to have a child *with* my husband - I did not have a strong urge to have children before meeting him. I find kids adorable and heart-wrenchingly innocent from a distance/in the abstract (e.g. the photos of Ukrainian kids in the news are gutting me and I walk by babies and think they're cute). But I'm not a play-on-the-floor, hands-on kid person and I don't like noise/chaos/disruption, so I'm very comfortable living a more adult-led life.[/quote]

So I really like this, and it’s inspirational to me personally. But here is my real-world example of guilt getting in the way. I want to go out with my DH tonight! A dinner, a movie, whatever. But my DD (11) will then stay home all alone. She’ll be in her room, on her phone 😣 this makes me feel so guilty. My older kid will be out with friends. [/quote]

I'm the 13:39 poster. Just to expand on what I was saying based on this example: In this case, 1) your daughter should not get constant entertainment from you, it's not good for her. It's good for her to have to figure out how to entertain herself in an empty house! Great! 2) Your daughter is a strong, competent 11 year old who is certainly capable of entertaining herself for an evening.

See if that helps. [/quote]

I appreciate this reminder. Good advice everyone! [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics