A Mother’s Guilt

Too busy mum – a mother’s guilt

Picture this – you’ve had a rough morning, work emails for days, you still need to do the grocery shopping, cooking and you need to see to the guy who’s come to fix your garage door that has succumbed to loadshedding schedules that never really stick to the schedule.  You’re on your way to fetch the kids from school and you can just imagine the bickering that’s going to take place on the way home.  So you turn the radio on to tune out the bickering which means you’re not chatting to them about their day. Why? Because you just can’t, not today. And there it is. A mother’s guilt

Too relaxed mum – guilty mum

So maybe it’s not every day that this happens and you’re allowed to not be in the mood sometimes.  The problem is that mums (and I know that this is all mums) suffer from a Mother’s guilt all the time. I’ll be honest; I’m a pretty soft parent.  I let my kids get away with attempted murder (Of each other that is).  We have certain boundaries that I know I will never allow to be crossed but for the most, I feel like I’m not that stern with them.  Thankfully they aren’t really murderers and get away with screen time instead of chores, or we’ll end up baking cookies instead of doing homework. It all gets done somehow so I figure that it doesn’t matter in the bigger scheme of things. But then I feel guilty because I don’t have stricter boundaries and I wonder how they’ll learn responsibility that way.

Feeling like an unfair mum – a mother’s guilt

Kids can be manipulative too. I honestly don’t remember when my eldest son was given a phone but my middle son won’t let me hear the end of how he doesn’t have one yet.  Or how one of them got a really cool bike and the other 2 didn’t.  They fail to see the hundred other things each of them have that the others don’t (like obscenely expensive branded sneakers). And so the guilt rears its ugly head again. Maybe I have been unfair? Or, maybe I’m remembering things wrong? Is it possible that I really didn’t make him pancakes that one time in June 2009?

The overthinking mum – guilty mum

And my mother’s guilt goes on. I really shouldn’t be going out with my friends. Maybe I don’t really need that new outfit.  And, maybe I don’t do enough for kid 2 and 3? Maybe I should wake up earlier so I can properly braid my daughter’s hair… on and on it goes. And then maybe, just maybe, I should stop overthinking everything and realise that whether I do or not, things will happen as they are meant to.  That no mum has it all figured out and we’re all struggling for time. And that I am blessed enough to be able to do most of the things I do for and with my kids and that they will turn out just fine. Guilt or no guilt.

This article was originally written for Jozikids by Fatima Kazee in 2020.

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