Mom Guilt - The Teller Of Lies

Published by MacKenzie on March 2nd, 2023

Whew! There's been quite a theme in my therapy sessions with clients this week. And it all stems from one thing.

Mom Guilt.

What a powerful and dreadful feeling of inadequacy and selfishness from two little words.

As moms, we feel it, dare I say, a good deal of the time. It usually starts before the baby is even born with the age old question: "Are you going to breastfeed?"

From there, well, we honestly don't have time to list all of the ways that mom guilt shows up for us. Sadly, it never really goes away or stops showing up. Many women fight with it daily.

Mom guilt is the ultimate teller of lies.

We tell ourselves that we're selfish for wanting time away from our children, that we aren't doing what is best for them. We convince ourselves that reaching out to our support system for help is going to be burdensome to them. We let society and outdated beliefs/gender roles tell us what we should and shouldn't do. (For those of you who know me, you know I hate the word should.) The list goes on and on and....you get the picture.

Mom guilt creates martyrs out of moms. We somehow come up with this idea that we would rather suffer than battle against these lies our brain is telling us. And we wonder why we're anxious, depressed, snapping at our kids or partner, not sleeping well and feeling burned out from everything.

It doesn't have to be this way!

Learning to accept these thoughts are happening and kicking them to the curb is going to make you a better mother, partner, friend...a better everything. Who wouldn't want to feel better about taking time for ourselves, going on a date with our spouse or any other thing we keep ourselves from doing!

Remember, just because you're having these thoughts does not make them true! Thoughts are just that...thoughts.

Here are some ways in which you can tell mom guilt where it can go:

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