Mommy-Guilt!
by Ellen C. Braun
Filed under Communication, Controversial Parenting Styles, Sibling Rivalry
There’s Daddy-Guilt as well, however since the majority of my subscribers are women, for the sake of simplicity I’ll stick to the feminine gender in this article:)
How often does Mommy-Guilt hit upon you? For some of us, it’s only a few times a month, when we realized that we parented our child in a less-than-model manner. For many of us mothers, Mommy-Guilt accompanies virtually every hour of the day.
Here are some common themes that echo the brain of one suffering from Mommy-Guilt:
“That’s so awful… he will grow up to be a violent person if he keeps hurting his sister like that!”
“I need quiet! I can’t take the noise anymore… why can’t my children play nicely?”
“Oh, no, she is in control, I let her get away with her heart’s desires… oh, why am I unable to control my own daughter?!”
While similar statements may flit through our minds, there is a key component to Mommy-Guilt that will open the door to resolving this delicate issue.
Picture this scene: You walk into the kitchen and your five-year-old is playing with Grandma’s porcelain salt and pepper shakers as though they are dominos. “Oh, no!” you scream (aloud or in your mind). “Whoever heard of a five-year-old that plays with Grandma’s china decorations?! You are not going out of this room until you sweep up every chip and apologize to your grandmother!”
After the kitchen has been cleaned, and the air is somewhat clear, you recall the things you heard in a recent parenting seminar. You remember hearing about parenting in a calm tone of voice, and you wonder what kind of a mother you are after all. Mommy-Guilt sets into your heart strongly on this fine evening.
Later, in a moment of peacefulness, backtrack into the event above, and try to elaborate regarding your feelings- just before yelling at your son. If this is a new exercise for you, it may not be easy at first. Mentally put yourself back into the situation that caused your anger and try to identify the precise feelings that flitted through your mind just prior to your outburst. Very likely it was something like,
“This is terrible! Why can’t I leave my child alone for a two minutes without him destroying the house!”
or, “I feel trapped! I have to be on top of my child at all times to make sure he does not make any trouble, and I really need some quiet time for me!”
Alternatively, you may think, “What kind of a destructive child have I been raising; this is awful to feel so totally helpless in front of a kindergartener!”
What you need to realize right now is that it is not the actual even which caused your anger and frustration- rather it was the thoughts you had about the event that caused your emotions to escalate.
Factual and neutral observations would not result in heated anger. Thoughts such as, “I see it’s quite noisy here” or, “She has hit the baby,” or “He is teasing the dog” connote an acceptance of the situation- although doubtless the acceptance would not be accompanied by happiness.
Accepting a situation means that you are not fighting with the present; you are not railing against your fate. While you try to do whatever is within your power to improve the situation, you understand that life does not always meet our expectations.
It is helpful to write down your trigger thoughts for several weeks. You will begin to notice a pattern that sets you off.
Many people realize that they become enraged that life is not turning out how they imagined, “This is terrible! Things are not turning out how I want them to be!” Other people gravitate towards sadness, “It’s really sad that I cannot have the life I want.”
Once you have identified your trigger emotions, you can begin to accept and deal with them in a productive and healthy manner.
Many of our thoughts can be summed up like this, “This sort of stuff should not be happening to me! My life should not be this difficult! I can’t stand the frustration of reality being different from what I want!”
After identifying our innermost thoughts, the next step is to legitimately question that which we have asked for so long: “I need some quiet time!” or, “They must stop fighting, it’s driving me insane!”
Needs are those which are necessary for life, such as food, clothing, and shelter. You may feel that you NEED peace and quiet, however, when stripped to the bare bones, it is actually a preference. (And I’m the first mom to state that you definitely deserve some relaxation!)
Understanding that what you once considered needs are truly preferences for the way of life you desire will greatly enhance your ability to cope. You will be able to tell the little voice in your head that even though life is not the way you want it, it is okay. You will manage, make the best of what life has dealt you, and persevere to the best of your abilities.
When you are able to switch to a mode that DESIRES a life without troubles, rather than the unproductive mode which REQUIRES a life without difficulties, you will be able to handle situations without the old reflex of flying off the handle.
The next time you find your small souls engaged in rivalry, and the usual “They ought not fight so much!” thought surfaces- you will be able to quickly recognize the irrationality of your thought. After all, it is foolish to expect raising children to be two decades of trouble-free time. Because you have learned to be cognizant of your initial thoughts, you will be able to phrase your reaction to the tune of: “It’s too bad that the children are acting out like this, let me see what would be the best way to handle the situation at hand.”
Once you have mastered your internal thoughts and reactions, your behavior will follow suit, and the Mommy-Guilt will consistently shrink until it virtually disappears!
I enjoyed Paula’s reply. I think guilt can be our conscience telling us we need to look at what we are doing and try do better. Guilt can be very useful in motivating us to reassess our priorities and how we could be loosing our balance.
I too would appreciate articles for full-time working mom’s on how to deal with guilt in a productive manner. My 2 sister-in-laws are stay at home moms and one of them home schools, the difference in “guilt” feelings is so vast, whereas they may feel guilty for snapping at their children, I feel guilty for not spending enough time with her and not having enough of an impact on her upbringing – immensely different issues!
I just read the artical again for a review and this is exactly what my husband and I are going through right now. Our 2 girls are fightng constantly and they are both so viscious. The one just turned 5 today and the other is now 8. If it isn’t them fighting it’s one of them throwing an attitude or the younger one throwing massive tantrums. It’s been so out of hand that we’re at our wits end.We also homeschool, so I have them with me 24/7 which also makes it hard to really get my house clean. I make them help around the house, but they are only cooperative with minimal work and I have to really fight them tooth and nail to do the rest. Even the little they do is a major effort. Yet if I say it to the wrong people I get the condescending”You should just put them in public schools so you aren’t so stressed.” and that really gets my fire burning.
What I see happening in our society now is whether we homeschool or send out kids to schoo somewhere else, many of us do not have extended families to help us raise our children. My husband and I are doing it alone and we don’t drive due to not seeing well enough to get a liscence. Immediately that opnes us to judegemental people who look down on us like we don’t have brains or something. Anyways, we don’t have extended family helping us with anything and I see this is an ongoing trend with many families today. I firmly believe many of our children are reacting to this like they know something is missing. Being only one person when my husband is at work, I can only do so much cleaning, teaching and running errands in one day, especially on foot or by bus. It would be nice to find other families to help each other with different needs who are in the same situation, but I haven’t found anyone who is open to something like that who we could help as much as them helping us. I know I’m not the only one going through this.
For in the last days the love of many will wax cold 2 Timothy chapter 3
Dear Ellen,
your article and advice about Mommy-Guilt is wonderful. The solution you present about checking one’s thoughts is great, especially for one to focus on the facts that have brought about the thought in the first place, so this way we are able to step a little bit outside of ourselves and for us to also realize that when we are thinking about how to change a reality that cannot be changed, because it has happened aly.
I don’t know about you, but I feel very much reminded about ‘Byron Katie’ and what she teaches in ‘The Work’, which of course helps not only adults but also how we can help our children to cope with reality, yet we may be able to explain it to them differently.
We are always in each other’s energy field, so to speak, so our children also pick-up on our frustration and it also important to understand that they too have their moments. If we as parents after having experienced life for so much longer than our kids already, and we are still having problems to cope than how can we expect from our kids to act ‘rational’, if we can’t teach them ‘how to’ by living the example ourselves?
I really love your site and the way you give helpful advise to the many moms and dads in order to shift our perspective and out-look about parenting and who we are together with our kids.
After all we are all Souls equally, and once we understand this to be truth, we no longer look at our kids as being ’small’ in a sense of being lesser in intelligence, or lesser in the way they do things, or speak, yet about them as ’small people’ concerning their body size that are to be nurtured and guided by the ‘bigger adults’ that are here to help and guide to bring about a strong soul that will truly find ways to express their unique talents and gifts by recognizing our children as ‘equals’ that simply speak and express themselves differently than we do, because of the ‘physical age-difference’.
Once we truly get to understand our child’s mind, we also may find reason to place less stress upon ourselves, as we understand that it is not for us parents to constantly ‘be so called helicopter parents’, but to possibly create our home in such a way that it is ‘child-safe’ and that grandma doesn’t leave her expensive porcelain standing around in reach of her grand children, for example.
We expect our children (that are just learning) to be careful and to not break things up, yet we as parents are ‘careless’ enough to give them the opportunity by making it accessible for them …. lol …. just reflecting from another perspective, no blame here ….
And, ‘yes’ I feel that mommy deserves a time out, because mommy is also a human being that isn’t only mommy, but also a wife (if she is not a single mom), possibly an employee or business owner (where she takes upon another role), a daughter, a friend and whatever mommy chooses to be for herself, meaning she does have her own personality that calls her by her first name and asks for being expressed as well in order to be in harmony with all the other roles she is playing.
Once all roles a person plays including being herself/himself is expressed instead of one or more are being sub-pressed a healthy balance is assured and also consciously accepted and lived. From here on valuable choices, responses and actions can be made from a ‘higher’ out-look, or perspective that enables one to detach from mere emotional re-actions and instead to turn them into responses that serve all involved persons best; – possibly from the heart and not so much from the ‘chattering mind’.
Love and Peace to Everyone,
Yvonne Love.
Good article. I feel guilty when i am on to my children fighting with each other. I too was an only and do not understand why they can’t get along. They don’t fight with their friends like they fight with each other.
Karen,
their friends are ‘play mates’ where they hold a detached point of view about them. Friends are not residing in their homes where it gets territorial, because friends leave and go back to their own home.
A sibling is ‘more one of themselves’ as well as they may fight over territory concerning mommy and daddy!
Sometimes it is best to just let them be and let them figure it out on their own. If you keep running there every time they fight they will do it more and more in order to trigger you to give them attention.
Try to give them more attention when they behave well, and less when they are fighting.
Where ever you place your attention will grow stronger, and what you resist persist! So be aware of that.
The only way to interrupt a fight in my opinion is when you feel that one child is in immediate danger because he or she is about to really get hurt. Other than that, let them be!
Another way, if it gets too much for you as a person needs strong nerves to live through this, separate them and place them each in a different room and demand that there is silence.
You can go even as far as speaking to each of them separately (after everything has calmed down for a while) and ask them how they feel and give loving advice in order to let them see that in both cases each sibling is possibly just feeling as hurt as the other as each one of them of course believes to be right. Make sure that during these personal conversations the other sibling stays in their respective space that you designed for them, so there is no interruption of your conversation with the sibling that you are speaking with.
Let them know that defending one’s standpoint of being right is ego-based and not to be taken into consideration as worth fighting over. Let them know that it is ok that people/children have different viewpoints and that this is acceptable by just saying
“Ok, you feel this way, and I feel another way about something. As we are not on the same page here, lets just move onto to something else (another game) where we do agree and can share fun via same interests”.
Hope this helps.
Love and Peace,
Yvonne.
Good advice Yvonne. Thank you it helps. I know this too shall pass.
You are very welcome, Karen
Love and Peace,
Yvonne.