Tag Archives: Guilty Mom

1

Cheers to a guilt-free 2016! (LOL, J/K!)

|

It’s 2016 and I have a 10-month-old! He is freakin adorable and generally incredibly happy and healthy. He crawls, he eats an amazing amount of solids (yay baby led weaning) and he’s quite the social butterfly. But holy crap, the issues/concerns/guilt/worry just never stops, does it? This is going to be going on until he’s 40, right?

In between the smiles, cuddles and giggles, here’s a rundown of our last month or so, in rough chronological order –

November

  • Extreme drop in my milk supply, which means an extra pumping session for me (3-4 times per day at work plus at night before I go to bed – In addition to me going to nurse him at daycare every day on my lunch break).
  • Constant battle of distraction/fussiness during lunch nursing sessions.
  • Double ear infection right before Thanksgiving.

Continue reading →

1

Just because I work full time, doesn’t mean I’m not a full-time mom.

|

I wrote this post about a month ago and was a little conflicted about sharing it. But here goes. It’s kind of ranty, but that’s how I was feeling at the time.

A good friend (single, no-children, male) recently asked me if I was “still doing the full-time mom thing” or if I’d gone back to work. My immediate response was, “Yes.” Yes, I’ve been back at the office for several months now. And, yes, I’m also a full-time mom. Then I started thinking about the language that is used to describe moms and motherhood. Stay At Home Mom. Work At Home Mom. Working Mom. Part Time Working Mom. Full Time Working Mom. There are probably other labels that I don’t even know about. What do you call a mom who owns her own business that has always been run out of her home, and still does that now, with a baby to care for? What about an artist who creates in an in-home studio, and also has two kids at home most days? There are so many different situations and scenarios for families and mothers and childcare, it’s kind of ridiculous to have labels for everything. And what do all of these women have in common? They are ALL full-time moms!!!! However, this label seems to be reserved for moms who stay at home (working or not) and have their children at home (not in daycare).

Now, I know he meant to distinguish between staying at home vs. working outside of the office, but as someone who pays attention to language and words and semantics a lot, that kind of hit home for me, and got me thinking about the words we use to talk about motherhood.

Continue reading →

2

Do I have to feel guilty to be a good mom?

|

So apparently this whole guilt thing doesn’t get any better as kids get older. When I went out Saturday night, I was talking about mom guilt with a friend, one of the other band wives, who is a parent of three daughters ranging in age from college to 6th grade. She touched on some of the things she felt guilty about when her kids were younger, and things she still feels guilty about today… even though her oldest is away at college and is doing her own very adult thing. THERE’S STILL MOM GUILT WHEN THEY GO TO COLLEGE! While that may not be comforting at all, at least I know that I’m not alone. Mamas, you are NOT alone in your guilt!

Continue reading →

1

Guilty mom goes out on the town…

|

Oh, man. What a weekend! We had a babysitter lined up for both Friday and Saturday nights – two nights out in a row, y’all! It was also the first time we’ve had a paid babysitter, someone other than our parents or good friends. After last weekend’s guilt- and anxiety-inducing trip ended up being totally fine (Baby J was asleep before 7 and didn’t wake until well after we returned), I thought leaving him for a few hours after bedtime to go less than 10 minutes away would be a breeze. And on Friday night, it was. He was asleep about half an hour before the sitter got there, we were out until midnight, and he didn’t wake up until nearly 6 a.m. We had an awesome time at a show at one of our favorite places in town to see live music, and we saw some friends we hadn’t seen in ages, and it was revitalizing for both of us.

Last night, Saturday, was a bit more difficult. Will was playing a show in the neighborhood, so he left earlier. Our bedtime feeding, which normally is peaceful and drowsy, was not so. Baby J was fussy and didn’t get a full feeding on both sides. I eventually put him down, and he was awake in his crib without crying for about 20 minutes, then the crying started. Now, for the last month or so, 95% of the time he is able to put himself to sleep without crying. Every now and then, he’ll have a random night where he cries for a bit, but I’ve always been there. Last night, he didn’t put himself to sleep in 10 minutes. The sitter came about 15 minutes into the crying, and I decided to try feeding him again. He nursed for about 20 minutes on one side (definitely a full feeding) and I put him back down. He was still crying. I was so torn.

Continue reading →

0

Time for a road trip (and a guilt trip)…

|

This weekend is going to be a challenge for the Guilty Mom… Will and I got tickets to see Phish in Raleigh on Friday. Way back when we put in for the ticket lottery, it seemed sooo far away on the calendar, and I thought, “we’ll have a 5-month-old then, surely we’ll be just fine leaving him for a few hours.” And then we got our tickets! It’s exciting because it’s been a few years since we’ve seen Phish, and it’s something that’s been a pretty big part of our lives as a couple, and for us as individuals for many years before we ever met.

So we made plans to drive to Will’s parents house in Burlington. They’re out of town, but my mom will drive down from Va. to watch baby J while we make the trip to Raleigh, see the show, and drive back to B-town afterward.  I didn’t really do the math on the drive time, show time, etc. until a couple of days ago and that’s when the anxiety and guilt started to set in…

Continue reading →

3

Read to your newborn or their brain will shrink!

|

Long before my son was born, and even before I became pregnant, I knew reading would be an important part of my child’s early years. My mom read to me early and often, and I credit that as one of the reasons why I had such a love of books, that grew into a passion for writing (remember me, the book nerd?). I wanted to pass on that passion to my child, so there was no question that we’d read stories every night from the time he or she was tiny to the time when he or she started reading to me. And then my child would write a best seller by age 20 and make millions from the movie adaptation, and we’d be set for life.

Lately, there’s been a lot of news about scientific evidence showing how awesome it is to read to your children (YAY! Go mom for doing that for me even before the “experts” said it was good!). But for it to really work, you have to start reading to them when they are tiny little babies. One NPR story I recently heard about it actually used the words “from birth” to describe when you should start reading to them. I’ll come back to that later.

Continue reading →

2

The Guilt List

|

So originally, I had the idea that writing a list of all of the things I feel guilty about as a mom might be a good cathartic exercise that would help me recognize, and move past, some of these feelings. Here is the list I came up with. Some are contradictory, some complementary, and all of them have washed over me at some point over the last 5 months. Some have been fleeting and some have been more consuming.. So, as a mom, I feel guilty about:

Continue reading →