Working Mom Guilt

Dear Working Mom Guilt,

Please consider this your eviction notice.

You are to pack up your things and vacate the premises immediately.

I understand that this is sudden, and you’ve probably settled into your home–my heart and mind–quite nicely, but you’ve got to go.  Allow me to explain.

Your last straw came a couple of weeks ago, when you decided to rear your ugly head when I’d forgotten that it was “Pajama Day” at school, and my daughter was “forced” to wear regular clothes.  She felt bad and so did I, as we watched the other little children walk through the doors with their Dora the Explorer and Spider Man sleeping attire.  As my daughter approached the building, a little slower than usual, I felt you creeping up behind me.

“You know, if you paid more attention to her school calendar and less attention to your work calendar, you wouldn’t have messed this up.”

“She’s probably going to have a terrible day at school because of you.”

You were relentless, my friend.  And harsh.  And mean.  In the end, it wasn’t my daughter that had a bad day because of my oversight, but me.  I felt like a failure, over something so trivial.  And it was then that I decided you had to go.

Because frankly, you bring out the worse in me.  You don’t care about the good things I do, or the fact that I’m raising an overall, happy child.  Those things don’t matter to you.  But that’s all that matters to me.

Much like most other mothers, I do the best that I can with the resources I have.  I’ve learned to stop dwelling on what I might be doing wrong and have started celebrating all the things I’m doing right.  Working mothers, like me, are putting food on the table, clothes on their children’s backs and creating secure future for their children.  And that is nothing to feel guilty about.

So, working mom guilt, it’s been real but you no longer have a home here.

Sincerely,

Vaneese Pattman, Guiltless Mom