Mommy Guilt

Mommy Guilt is defined as those feelings of inadequacy, of not giving or doing enough.  We all experience it at some point in time as parents, but what can we do about it?  Is it wrong to not want to do everything? Is it wrong to want more in life than “motherhood”?  The reality is that according to a Glamour magazine poll, 87% of women suffer some form of “mommy guilt”. But are we just being too harsh on ourselves and our self imposed expectations of “super Mom” and perfection?

I spent a few hours at the library recently trying to spark some new ideas for content in my newsletters.

Sometimes I love chatting about household practices and productive habits; at times time management and ways to outsource and delegate.

But this time I started randomly walking around and picking up books finding great nuggets of wisdom that I would like to share with you…

I stumbled upon a book by Katrina Alcorn titled“Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink” I was immediately intrigued.

Of course I didn’t have time to sit and read the entire book, but the synopsis is a story of a working mom who worked and balanced her life and career for as long as possible… until she had a nervous breakdown. She dives deep into the epidemic of working moms everywhere… Suffering from panic attacks, depression, heart palpitations, migraines and mysterious coughs…

What I did take away were some valuable statistics she had acquired while doing research…

This information is directly taken and quoted from her book:

A question she posed many was “what is the hardest part of being a parent?”

Her recorded responses were:

• Guilt that I can’t do everything well.
• Lack of time with the kids.
• Lack of time to myself.
• Lack of time with my partner.
• All of the above.

So why then are we so afraid to ask for help?

A somber post this week yes, but a reality check for all of us Moms out there. And important information for our husbands to consider…

Your Assignment for this week:

Take a piece of paper. Fold it in half. On one side write down all the things that give you tremendous joy in your life. Whether it be family time, date nights, walking on the beach, reading a good book in front of the fire…

Then on the other side write down all the things you do that you “tolerate” doing in your life. Things you would actually prefer not to do.

Then see what you can let go of on the right side of your paper and replace it with something from the left side!

I would love to know what you thought of this exercise!?

The idea here isn’t to change everything at once, but slowly start eliminating one by one things we don’t really want to do… And replacing them with things we WANT to do!

For example… I love to spend time with my family, just hanging out, going to dinner and playing a game of Uno! I love “dating” my husband… often!

I don’t want to clean floors anymore, so I have a housekeeper come once every other week. This gives me back hours of time to use for more important things I enjoy doing. I don’t like to cook 7 nights a week. For me 4 is optimal!

One of our clients just does NOT like grocery shopping or gift buying… So they have our team take care of those tasks so he can spend more time at the gym and golfing.

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

Benjamin Franklin

While you’re here make sure you join our family and sign up for our weekly newsletter and while you’re at it, you can get a free immediate download of my EBook how to Organize your Office Files!