The Picture-Perfect Guilty Mom

The Picture-Perfect Guilty Mom

When my children were little, I had a horrible time getting anything done. I was the picture-perfect guilty mom who always worried that I was going to miss something.

What made it worse were the articles that went something like this: “Don’t worry about getting the dishes done, the laundry done, or the dinner cooked. If your children want to play Candyland, stop what you are doing and play, because in a blink of an eye they will grow up and be gone and you will be begging for one more game of Candyland.” Oh, my goodness! I fell for it hook, line and sinker.

It quickly became quantity over quality.

I dropped everything whenever my heartstrings were pulled which was usually 104.5 times each day! “Mommy, will you play Legos? Will you help us make a fort? Hey, will you help with a lemonade stand? Mommy will you be the judge? Mommy, mommy, mommy?”

Don’t get me wrong, I loved doing things with my children, but I also felt the responsibility of getting things done and finding a few minutes of “me” time. I was stuck.

It was as if my body was going through the motions, but my mind was somewhere else.

To top it off, nothing was getting done. The day would come and go, and the dishes were dirty, the laundry wasn’t done, and the dinner wasn’t cooked. I had bought into the idea that more was better, and while spending time with my kids was awesome, my dirty, unorganized house was not. I needed to make a few changes.

It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly I began making changes. I still spent a ton of time with my children, but I began reframing things and seeing them a little bit differently.

Now almost twenty years into parenting, this is what I would share with my younger self:

• Don’t look into the future. You aren’t there yet. Spend your time in the here and now. Today you are living in yesterday’s future, and you are okay, right?
• Your children don’t need you to spend every waking minute with them. They need you to take care of yourself so when you do spend time with them you are checked in instead of burned out.
• A little bit of guilt pushes you to be better. Too much guilt does the opposite.
• If you drop everything the minute your children need anything, they will not learn the importance of patience, impulse control, or delayed gratification.
• Responsibility is a learned behavior. Your children will learn responsibility from watching you. Do the dishes, do the laundry, cook dinner, include everyone in doing chores, and then enjoy your time with them.
• When you do sit down to play a game of Candyland, don’t be thinking of doing the dishes. Be in the moment, be grateful for the time, and enjoy its simplicity.
• And if you play Candyland all day and get nothing done, let it go. I promise your house will be clean in twenty years!

My children are now 19, 16, and 13 and our days of Candyland are just a memory.

But guess what, I am okay! Do I miss the pitter patter of feet? Do I miss hearing, “Mommy, mommy, mommy?” Sometimes, but life has this crazy way of moving you into the next phase without even letting you know you are there.

In our house, it is no longer Candyland, it is conversations about college, friends, or classroom discussions. It’s watching a movie on the couch or texting funny pictures of the dogs.

Find ways to fill yourself up and get your jobs done, so you can enjoy the moments you do have with your children.

The amount of time you spend with your children won’t matter if those minutes are filled with a checked out, cranky mom.

Time will pass no matter what you do. How you choose to spend that time is up to you!

For more parenting read my book, The Parenting Backpack.