Mom guilt. I can’t believe it’s taken me almost 5 years of blogging to write an article on mom guilt.

Maybe it’s because I’m still learning about my own relationship with this ever-present shadow. But I strongly believe I now know how to approach this guilt over motherhood - and it may not be the way you think.

As much as we may want to, we cannot just get rid of guilt. Guilt is a productive emotion. When we feel self-reproach for having caused harm, we feel guilty. As we should. It’s our internal indicator to change our behavior to do and be better. It’s what has allowed humans to operate within interdependent communities.

What’s tricky with guilt is that it’s an internal barometer. We have to believe there is a right way to behave and if we violate that - voila - guilt.

But what happens when that “right” way to behave isn’t actually feasible, practical, or even desirable? What happens when that “right” way to behave is instead the result of societal gender norms that don’t work anymore?

This is the trap of Mom Guilt.

Mothers today are trapped in a loop of operating within gender norms that are no longer feasible or realistic - and we're losing the battle.

This is why Dad Guilt isn’t a thing. The bar is pretty low for dads when it comes to social norms. Historically, it’s been “provide for family.” Job done. Now, many dads have done and currently do way more than this. I’m not bagging on dads here at all. I’m bagging on gender norms that have shaped our belief systems.

“You must work to make a good living and have your own identity and be a present mother and nurture your children and partner and keep a tidy house and care for yourself.”

Any failure to live up to these standards will cause harm and you SHOULD feel guilty because you SHOULD do better.

Or, so our internal barometer tells us.

Excuse me, but not today, Satan.

Feeling this level of guilt usually does nothing but send us into a downward spiral of “not enough-ness.” What superhuman could possibly live up to that? Not even Wonder Woman.

Here’s what you can do instead with Mom Guilt.

Remember when I said we don’t want guilt to go away? It’s an indicator that something needs to change.

Usually, we think what needs to change is our behavior, but I’m going to argue that many times it’s our belief system. We need to re-evaluate the norm or belief that we believe we’re violating.

Here’s what that looks like:

“I feel guilty that my child spends eight hours a day with a caregiver that’s not Mom.”

Value/Norm: I should be the primary caregiver to my child and if someone else is caring for them then I am not doing my job as a mother and they will be harmed in some way.

I can either:

1) Change my behavior - find another way to either work or care for my child that allows me to spend more time with them.

2) Change my belief - embrace that what is important is a loving caregiver that does not have to be Mom.

OR, a little bit of both. Maybe I WANT to spend more time with my child, so I negotiate a way to spend half days on Fridays with them AND I embrace a belief that says they are not harmed by spending the rest of the time with a loving caregiver.

What’s important here is to acknowledge that we can’t just ignore the guilt. It doesn’t work that way. We need to release the guilt in some productive way so that it doesn’t completely consume us when we feel there’s nowhere for the guilt to go.

At least until gender norms catch up and Mom Guilt officially becomes a thing of the past.