The Mommy Guilt Trip...

So lately I've been thinking about guilt. Not your everyday guilt though...mommy guilt. For those of you unfamiliar with the term allow me to take you on a journey I like to refer to as..."The Mommy Guilt Trip".

It begins as soon as we discover we are pregnant. Our sheer joy and elation soon begin to mutate into an uncontrollable fear that "something will go wrong". We forbid our bodies of all possible toxins such as, alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, plastic bottles, and aerosol hairspray. We even begin standing at least a mile away from our microwaves while it is active for fear of those icky waves turning our unborn child into some sort of Incredible Hulk type fetus. Then, God forbid, something does go wrong. We develop high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, preterm labor, or even if our babies are not in the 95th percentile for growth, as we feel they should be, of course, we can only come to one conclusion. It is all our fault. Maybe it was the second trip to McDonald's that day, or maybe it was the glass of wine I had when I was six hours pregnant, or maybe it was because I did not eat organic free range all natural food from BPA free plates. Sure, people tell us there was nothing we could do to prevent it...but do we believe them? No.

Then the little angels are born, and maybe they spend some time in the NICU. The guilt manifests itself in the stabbing sorrow we feel when we cannot hold our precious and tiny babies without those damn tubes and wires that so harshly protrude from their bodies. We beg and pray for them to gain one pound, one ounce, one gram. If we have more than one baby, or child, we feel guilty that we can't be in two (or three) places at once. We feel guilty for spending what we perceive to be more time with one than the other.

We feel guilty when they cry.
We feel guilty because we don't, or can't, breastfeed.
We feel guilty for giving them store bought baby food instead of taking the time to prepare wholesome organic homemade baby food as all good mothers should.
We feel guilty if they get a diaper rash.
We feel guilty if they watch TV.
We feel guilty that they don't walk when they "should", talk when they "should", or sleep through the night when they "should".
We feel guilty for giving them chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, even though they love them, because "don't you know how bad that is for them?!"
We feel guilty every morning if/when we leave the house for work and wave to their little faces staring out the window as if to say, "How could you leave us?"
We feel guilty for having to discipline them,
say no to them,
not hold them every minute of every day and give them any and all things that they need or desire because we love them so much we can't stand for them to feel even the slightest bit of discomfort or pain!
Need I continue?

Here's the thing about guilt. It is usually the result of our own sense of right and wrong-based on how our actions and decisions could be (and are) judged by others. Nothing has a larger grayer area in this than parenting. Who's to say what's right and what's wrong? As parents in today's society we feel ourselves constantly judged and rated-our children's actions and feelings are in direct correlation to the smallest decisions we make each day. Or are they? I hardly think our own parents felt themselves question every decision they made-and if they did, they did what they thought was best-despite what others, or even society, thought. Why do we find it so hard to do the same? How many times can we Google some parenting issue before we have faith that with all the love we have for our children, whatever decision we make is in their best interest? I'm done with the Mommy Guilt Trip. I'm jumping ship with nothing but my good sense (and everything my mother taught me) to help me stay afloat. And God help any high and mighty son-of-a-you-know-what that feels they have the right to question my decisions. "Judge not lest ye be judged..." Matthew 7:1-3
Amen.
I apologize to those of you expecting an adorable chain of my babies hunting for Easter Eggs and posing with Peter Rabbit. Those are coming soon...