Yesterday, my dear friend E. and I were texting about meeting up at the gym, as we do every Tuesday evening. It was a beautiful day out, we had both gotten out of work, had gotten the hubby’s ok to keep the kids for an hour, it was all set. Yet, we didn’t end up going, and felt prey to the WMG, yet again!
If you’re a career woman with kids, or dependent, WMG, or Working Mom Guilt, is all too familiar. It’s the tightening in your chest when you’re about to do something for yourself, the constant second-guessing in the back of your mind. Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly apologizing for being working mothers, for leaving our kids upwards of 8 hours in daycare, and not spending every single minute of the day with them.
Especially when prime childbearing years increasingly coincide with prime professional years, and the moment when you need that paycheck to stock up on diapers and onesies is precisely the moment when you realize motherhood is not as economically empowering as it seems. Even after this study proving moms spend too much times with their kids, most of us felt temporarily relieved, yet went right back to feeling like we’re not quite doing enough.
Is Working Mom Guilt driving you deep into the pits of careerlessness? How many times have you wondered if fitting it all in, the kids, the laundry, shaving your legs once a full moon (who has time for that), is worth it? If you won’t regret hours spent at work or on your business, while the kids stuff themselves with animal crackers and watch cartoons? Or giving up on your dreams to raise children who will care for their own?
I know I have asked myself all the right (and wrong) questions, and have come up with exactly zero definitive answers. So I went back to the basics, making sure to keep a large supply of love and animal crackers, going back to work on my dreams, and trying to make it to the doggone gym so I don’t blame all my “baby weight” on my kids (who are no longer babies by the way)…
Where are you with your Working Mother Guilt?
The Corporate Sis.
