Guilty As Charged

Man! Is this ever a topic that hits home with me.  GUILT! I will be the first to admit that I suffer from awesome parenting guilt because I have a full-time job outside of the home.  And I'm not necessarily one of those mothers that works because I couldn't imagine myself not working.  In fact, I wish that I didn't have to work (at least not full time), but I do because...I have to.

Which leads me to Reason No. 1 on my list of why I feel guilty and/or how I try to compensate for my guilt:

Reason No. 1: We (I?) failed to plan properly for the day when I could stay home with my kids.

Hubby and I married the year after I graduated from law school and I was working for a fancy-schmancy law firm, raking in the big bucks.  And we bought a house based on our income at that time.  Then came along Baby #1.  All of a sudden, my feelings about work changed and I, first went part-time, then left the private sector entirely and went to work for the government.  My quality of life was better, but the pay was worse.  Then came Baby #2.  Ever since, I've been forced to work full-time to pay the bills.  And so I feel guilty for not thinking ahead when buying our house and we're stuck with a large mortgage and I'm stuck working full-time and my kiddies are stuck with a mom they see in the mornings, evening and on weekends. I'm almost like a cell-phone minutes plan.  Then there's the guilt about leaving the higher-paying job and "depriving" my family of fun extras like vacations, etc., you get the idea.

Reason No. 2: I know I feel guilty for working, and that's why I kill myself taking my oldest daughter to school every morning even though I don't have to.  Like hubby loves to remind me - I could ask the nanny to drop her to school (she picks her up in the afternoon).  But I figure, since I'm not home with her, and I'm not there to pick her up, the least I could do is drop her off in the morning, make sure her day starts on the right foot, chit chat with her teachers, and have some semblance of being an involved parent.  The problem is that her school is 15 minutes in the opposite direction from where I work and so I add an additional 30 minutes to my already hour-long commute.  Which means I'm always late to work and rushing, rushing, rushing. And so I feel guilty about that too. But which is worse?

Reason No. 3: I know I feel guilty for working and that's why I break my neck to plan and make daily dinners for my family.  Since I'm not home all day, the least I could do is make sure my family has a well-balanced, homecooked meal, right? So instead of me letting hubby throw something on the table (he gets home almost an hour before I do), I have him give the girls a snack. Then, I rush home, sometimes running into the grocery store for a forgotten ingredient, and speed home to make dinner at lightening speed.  I could definitely give Rachael Ray a run for her money.  The problem is that I'm always exhausted and stressed about making dinner and the girls are usually starving by the time I walk in the door. But making dinner? It's all I got.

Reason No. 4: I know I feel guilty for working all week, and that's why I try to plan some activity for the kids and I to do on the weekend.  Whether it's attend a puppet show or go to playdate, I always try to make sure that we are some sort of fun thing on the weekends.  Which is great, but usually ends up in all of us being extra tired by Sunday evening.

And so, I could go on. But you get the idea. This guilt thing? It's very real. And I could see how it could become destructive. So for now, I try to not let it get the best of me. But it ain't easy.

Hey - you think they make a pill for that?

Original DC Metro Moms blog post.  When she's not feeling guilty about blogging instead of doing the 1,000,000 other things she should be doing, Justice Fergie also blogs at MamaLaw.