10 Ways of Overcoming Working Mom’s Guilt
You worked more than 8 hours and come home feeling guilty because you just missed your son’s football game and now failed to tuck your lovely daughter to bed. Girl, cheer up! You have been struggling to juggle up your career and your family every day. You are doing a great job. Stop pressuring yourself to be supermom, because without you knowing it, you are already one supermom.
So how do you alleviate that working mom’s guilt? Read along.
1. Remember, you will only feel guilty if you did something wrong. If there is nothing wrong, then it is just pure self-loathing. Breathe in 1, 2, 3 and breathe out those pessimistic thoughts. They would never be helpful for you, mom.
2. If you are trapped in the mommy guilt, it only proves that you are a good mom. Bad moms may not feel the guilt because they don’t care. You definitely have the conscience and yes, you value your kids so much.
3. No matter how much you want to be the “perfect” mother, there are only good mothers. Being a mother is already a humbling job. You might be aiming for the superlatives that you start comparing yourself to the supposedly “perfect mom” in your neighborhood. You do not know what happens between their walls, stop comparing.
4. Yell for help. Don’t prohibit yourself in delegating jobs whether in your work or inside the household. Don’t slave yourself with making dinner and at the same time, changing the diaper and putting the laundry in the washer. Delegate the job to your hubby or teach kids to run some chores for you.
5. Have a working mommy’s support group. Lean on the shoulder of friends, family or colleagues who will boost your morale, will pat your shoulder or will lend a kind ear to listen to all your rumblings.
6. Be grateful that you are setting a good example to your kids. Your babies will be looking at you and will say: “I just want to be like you mommy. You simply do just about everything. You go to the office, clean the house, have friends, drive us to school and even do my hair”.
7. Loosen up a bit. If you are stressing yourself that your kids would be underdogs with those kids who have stay-at-home moms, ease up a bit because studies show that they would do just as well in school as those other kids.
8.It is not a sin to talk about work within your household. Think of it as good parenting. Sharing important life lessons to your kids, even career related would help them with reality as they grow.
9. Nurture a future-oriented state of mind. You can plan ahead so that you will be able to fully live in the present. You can avoid the morning chaos by preparing stuffs at night, and you can have ample time for obtaining that perfect smoky eyes for work.
10. Have your ME time. Indulge yourself to some pampering or meet ups with friends. Consider this as your useful preventive measure when you are having those burnouts over the guilt of juggling work and family.
If you think about it, you will never be at peace with yourself since you always assume that what you give to your family may not be enough. Sometimes, you just have to stop, then appreciate and celebrate your capabilities and strength as a woman, a wife and of course, a mother!
