In last week's blog, I channeled Brene Brown to explain the difference between shame and guilt. Before immersing myself in her work, I wanted to use them interchangeably. I started to discuss this with my husband, Bill, as he looked at me with that quizzical look, “Mom guilt, is that a thing?” He promptly pulled out his phone and found articles and blogs. He sheepishly looked up to say, “Ok, it’s a thing.” Now that he realized I wasn’t making mom guilt up, because likely it was his first thought.
He looked up at me and asked is it about The Nail? which has become a code for should he listen or try to solve my problem. This code started from an emotional intelligence workshop he had to take at work. And the only thing that literally stuck with him was this video. Take a look.
Despite the pure humor in this video, it has so much truth to it. This leads me straight back to mom guilt. Bill would like to focus on the action that brought me guilt, then work out a way to do that differently. I feel such frustration when he immediately wants to find a solution. Anyone out there feels the same way, it isn’t about the nail. I need to talk it through for a while before I’m ready for a solution.
For instance, another battle royal has occurred with my son, Liam, as he has started to stick his tongue out at me screaming in a mocking tone, “You can’t make me go to my room.” At the moment, I'm still holding it together, but he proceeds to push further. “I hate you. Bella is stupid, it’s all her fault,” as he is dancing on the stairs, tongue still out full of venom. The next thing I know, I reached out and smacked him as I grabbed his arm and took him to his room.
I proceeded to collect my thoughts, but the guilt starts to wash in as his voice vibrates through the walls, "My arm hurt thanks to you." At that very moment, thoughts of how you’re not supposed to hit your child flood my mind as I wonder, what did I just do? It doesn’t help that seconds later Bill comes down saying, “What just happened?” And now the guilt turns into anger, as he tries to solve the problem.
Mom guilt can stem from losing your temper like me, judgey mothers or mothers-in-law, feeling like you aren’t spending enough time with your kids, letting them have too much screen time, comparing yourself to other moms or social media posts, pretty much any way you can find a way to tell yourself, you are not doing a good enough job.
For me, at that moment I felt guilty I was pushed over the edge. I know it happens at times, and I should be kind to myself, but the other thoughts running through my head don’t always allow that to happen. Trying to explain all this to Bill, I started by explaining the phrase, “What just happened?” is a trigger for me because the tone he uses varies the meaning of that phrase; however, at this point, that phrase needs to be eliminated. It took me quite a while to realize that.
From my experience, it comes down to having a safe space to work out my feelings about guilt with other moms going through this experience. When I have a solution, such as let’s not use that phrase not using, “What just happened?” then I can bring that back to my husband. As he puts it, he really only wants the cliff notes version and will take action with that. I want to keep talking, he wants to solve the problem and move on to whatever else he was doing; therefore, I end up closing down and don’t talk to him.
If anyone moms out there feel like me, I’d like to invite you to a Master Class to Stop Mom Guilt this Thursday at 10 am CST because together in a safe space we can support each other in finding our solutions while we talk it out. Then bring the cliff notes versions to our significant others to create some positive change in our houses. Click the link above to sign up!
