If you are looking for one of those lists of 100 fun things to do with your kids this summer, you’ve come to the WRONG place. However, if you are already feeling a bit, or perhaps even a lot, overwhelmed about running crazyville this summer and you want to feel better about yourself – pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, and stay awhile. You’ve come to the right place because I’m not going to give you any fun summer to-do lists, or DIY activities, or lists of all the life changing experiences I plan to give my children this summer. I don’t have any of those things and I’m ok with that. You know why? Because I decided I’m letting go of MOM GUILT.
What is MOM GUILT you ask?
A single mom feeling guilty that she won’t be enough for her kids. A stay at home mom who feels guilty for leaving her kids to go on a much needed anniversary getaway with her husband. A working mom who feels guilty because she doesn’t see her kids enough. A new mom who feels guilty because she can’t breastfeed her child. A stay at home/working mom who feels like she should have constant fun planned for her kids because they just got out of school for summer but she is overwhelmed and trying to launch a new business so she can’t (that last example is me just FYI)….
MOM GUILT. It sneaks up on you out of nowhere and grips you; then it makes you feel like the biggest failure on the face of the earth. Mom guilt tells you that you are never enough; that you are getting it all wrong; that you are messing your children’s lives up; that everyone else is doing it better.
You want to know how long it was into summer break before I was ready to throw in the towel? Approximately 11 hours, 27 minutes and 13 seconds. Sure the kids were fighting. Absolutely they were asking for a snack every five minutes then doing some more fighting which was driving me crazy. But they weren’t the problem. I was. Well, I guess if I’m going to be more accurate…my MOM GUILT was the problem. I was sitting in my office working – trying to launch my new website and business – and you know what hits me? MOM GUILT. Like full freaking force, I can’t even control it, mom guilt.
“You should get up and go make your kids and all their friends homemade cookies and lemonade,” says a little voice in my head.
“But you have SO much to do, no you shouldn’t,” says the other voice (the realistic, non-crazy voice in my head).
“But a good mom would go make homemade cookies and fresh hand-squeezed lemonade,” says the other little voice (let’s go ahead and call her the mom guilt voice and for purposes of this illustration, SHE’S THE VILLIAN).
For over an hour, I sat in my office working and fought with the mom guilt voice. She told me I was a bad mom. She told me I sucked. She told me I wasn’t good enough. All because I wouldn’t get up and go make homemade cookies and lemonade.
Later that day – mom guilt again. Then again the next morning – you guessed it – MOM GUILT round fifty-seven.
“You are a terrible mother. You haven’t taken your kids on a fun summer outing or done a DIY project with them yet. And you didn’t go harvest some chicken eggs from your organic chicken farm outside and make them some homemade chocolate chip pancakes. All you’ve done is launch a business and ignore them. YOU. SUCK.”
I was feeling absolutely miserable. I texted a best friend and said I felt like a failure. I hit an all time low.
Then, something beautiful happened. I decided it was time to stop listening to that stupid little voice in my head – the mom guilt voice. I decided it was going to be a long summer if I listened to the mom guilt voice telling me how terrible I was every single day. So you know what I did?
I decided to let go of mom guilt.
I accepted that no, I’m not perfect; yes, I get it wrong sometimes. But I love my kids fiercely and everyday, I try to be the best mom that I can be. And maybe being the best mom that I can be means going on a photography session every once in awhile, even if it means that I miss a baseball game. Maybe being the best mom that I can be means going on a trip with my husband and putting him and our marriage first. Maybe being the best mom I can be means loving my children SO, SO, SO, MUCH, but still having goals for myself, and hobbies that I enjoy, and a life outside of just being “MOM.”
Maybe being the best mom that I can be, means letting go of the mom guilt and teaching my kids that this summer, we are going to have fun. We are going to have LOTS of fun. We are going to go to the lake. We are going to go see movies. We are going to play with friends. We are going to the beach for a week in July. But you know what else is going to happen? I’m going to work. There will be days when I am on my computer for a majority of the day and I’m going to require them to fix their own lunch (GASP! Imagine the horror of it all), and I’m going to require them to maybe help with a load of laundry, and I’m NOT going to entertain them and have preplanned activities going the entire day….AND THAT’S OK.
You know what I realized on this journey toward letting go of mom guilt? That a generation ago, mom guilt wasn’t even an issue. Kids got up and were expected to be responsible, and fix themselves lunch, and maybe even walk to school by themselves. In the summers they were expected to go out on the farm and work from sun up to sun down, then come home and help fix dinner and clean up, without complaint. Things are completely different now. We live in a generation with the internet and social media and technology and millions of mothers who are constantly comparing themselves to one another then giving into mom guilt – “Suzie’s mom plays Barbie’s with her for two hours a day. I’m not a good mom unless I do that. John’s mom is the President of the PTA and I don’t even volunteer. I’m a terrible mother. Rachel’s mom packs organic handmade lunches everyday and I make mine eat at the cafeteria. I must not love my kids as much as they do.” I believe this comparison syndrome, which is a whole different blog post in itself, has contributed to birthing a generation of mothers who indulge in constant mom guilt. And you know what I’ve realized? MOM GUILT frightens me a little bit. I’m slightly frightened of a generation of kids who are raised thinking it’s normal for mom to entertain them and wait on them from sun up til sun down. I’m scared of a generation who thinks that their mother is mean if she isn’t revolving every second of every single day around them. I’m scared of a generation raised by moms who constantly give into mom guilt, allowing their kids to think the entire world should revolve around their every whim.
So you know what? What if we all just let it go? What if we told our kids no every now and then and didn’t feel like it makes us a terrible mother? What if we pursued our interests and worked and put our marriage first, and we didn’t carry around this constant burden that somehow, that makes us a failure as a mother? What if we did what we are good at and what we can, and we didn’t compare that to what other moms are doing? What if we let go of unwarranted mom guilt?
The day I launched my business, I walked into my bedroom and found some special packages and a big banner that my kids had made me to congratulate me on my “biz launch.” As I read their sweet notes to me, I was reminded of another time when I was editing a session and my six year old walked in, patted me on the back innocently, then just said, “Mom, don’t ever stop taking pictures.” Then there was the time (see picture below) when I walked into my office and found this note of encouragement on my computer from my daughter – “Top 10 women who inspire me: MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM.”
Wait a minute. Hold up. So you mean to tell me that I’m sitting in my office feeling like a complete failure because I’m working instead of doing #37 on the 100 Fun Activities of Summer list, and in the meantime, my daughter is watching me and feeling not neglected, but INSPIRED?
Maybe I was the one who had it all wrong. Maybe instead of feeling guilty, I should have realized that I’m teaching my kids some valuable life lessons – to be a hard worker, to never give up, to follow your passions, to dream, to create, to sacrifice, to be confident, to use the gifts you’ve been given, to not quit when things get hard, and here’s another great life lesson….
Don’t live your life being controlled by guilt.
Hi, my name is Carissa but you can call me C.C. and I’m learning to let go of unwarranted mom guilt because it sucks. You can let go of it too if you want to. My kids seem to be surviving just fine even though they have a mean mom who decided to let go of mom guilt. PS…I still don’t have a Summer Fun list and I don’t plan on making one. Yesterday I took my kids to the book store and bought that new Harry Potter fantastical creatures book and we are reading a chapter a night and are going to go see the movie together. That’s all I’ve done so far this summer. And that’s ok with me.
Peace out mom guilt.
-CC
Oh and this last picture has nothing to do with this post other than to just say that’s my youngest…Coco Miller. And that is #lifewithCoco
