Free Guilt! No, Wait, Guilt-Free!

I had an interesting conversation with my mom the other day. We were contemplating why it is that we harbour and hang onto guilt our entire lives. I laughed it off and told her that I, fortunately, was born without the guilt gene and didn’t have a clue what that would feel like. The more I thought about the issue, the more I realized that guilt is a shadow that we all wear, just in varying degrees. We can choose to be paralyzed by it, or we can choose to rise above it. It can be a mild inconvenience or it can be completely crippling—a nagging thought in the back of your mind, or a brick wall you slam your head against nightly. Guilt is a spectrum disorder.

So I began to think about what affects our guilt-o-meters. Why do I largely get to escape the nightly head slamming, while Mom gets to relive unfortunate situations for the rest of her life? And if I really truly examine the issue, I have to say, I think it’s because I’m shallow. Like, wading pool shallow. But more importantly, I think shallow is a good place to be. I believe that my little family unit, with myself as the nucleus, is the most important thing in the world. I also believe that it is my inherent duty to put myself and my family before any other concern. That’s right: before global warming, before world peace, and before all of those other people that are populating my planet. This means, I am okay with taking care of myself, and I realize that to do so properly means to abandon guilt. Relentlessly. Okay, I do recycle, compost, and rarely bomb other countries, but it’s not because of guilt. There are other motivators behind those life choices.

So let’s think about this as a parenting issue. There is a plethora of guilt out there for us, if we’re willing to open up and take it. It starts in pregnancy—people telling you how you should behave as a pregnant woman, what you should eat, how much physical activity you should get, etc. And if you don’t do these things verbatim, god forbid, you are already a bad parent. Shame on you. So you manage to somehow make it through the pregnancy without killing your infant. Are you breastfeeding? Are you breastfeeding on demand? Are you covering up in public places? Why? Are you ashamed of breastfeeding? Because, mommies, even if you think you’ve got it right, there is somebody out there who will tell you that you’ve got it all wrong. The biggest victims of this angst-pit are the new mommies who haven’t yet realized that the rest of the world should just shush. Yes, there is a lot of information out there, and you should definitely do your research and figure out what’s best for you. The thing is, what is best for you is not necessarily THE WAY TO DO THINGS. THE WAY TO DO THINGS does not exist.

The key for me in guilt-free parenting has been to avoid victim-speak. Victim-speak is that little voice inside your head that says, “Geez, this is hard. I can’t do this. I’m a sucky parent,” or, “Why do I always do that?” or even, “I bet she never loses her temper when she’s parenting.” If you let that little voice speak up, you are opening the door to guilt. The worst kind of guilt: sucky-parent guilt. I squash that voice. I take it out back and whoop it good. I put its guilty little head on the curb and stomp on it with my sensible shoes. Then I look at the situation that let that little voice speak up, and I say, “MAN that sucked. But it’s kind of funny. So now what can I do to stop it from happening again?” Then, like the SuperReaders from SuperWhy, I look in a book. Or on the internet. Sometimes I find some really useful suggestions (although never once have I found THE WAY TO DO THINGS), and other times I find a bunch of crap that doesn’t help at all, but the key is, now I’m actively thinking about solutions to my problem. I have to stop blaming myself to do this. You cannot simultaneously be solving a problem and blaming yourself.

I have to admit, I have a little more than my fair share of self-efficacy. I have an undeniable belief that I know how to do things. That’s why I’m such a bossy wife. Self-efficacy feels fabulous! I walk around thinking that I am an awesome mom. I know that my kids are happy and that I am doing the very best job that I can. Even with my faith in my own ability, I know I’m not a perfect parent. I lose my temper. I have moments of parenting that when I look back I know were not my shining moments. If I had been caught on hidden camera, people may be questioning my ability to parent at all. But I also know that EVERYBODY has those moments. And if we let those moments define who we are as parents, we will only suffer and never learn. The best part of guilt-free parenting is that it lets you free up valuable head space that normally is occupied by self-loathing and self-doubt. It lets you go outside with your kids and play at the park all morning while your breakfast dishes get crusty in the sink. It lets you enjoy every moment of your life because when you truly examine your list of priorities, housekeeping sits near the absolute bottom of the list of things that are important to you. If external influences are telling you that you should be putting more time and energy into your housekeeping, curb-stomp them (unless it’s family—you should never curb-stomp family. But you can feel free to invite them to clean whatever it is that does not meet their approval).

My mantra is this: “I know what I’m doing. And if I truly don’t know what I’m doing, I’m not afraid to find out.” I’m open to the advice from the universe, I hear it and evaluate it for what it is, but when it comes down to it, I trust that truly capable mama voice deep inside of me. She knows what she’s doing.