The Guilt Trip

Maybe it has something to do with having been born Catholic but I usually walk around feeling guilty about something. I regularly beat myself up over stuff that I said that was insensitive/stupid/silly or moves that I made that were foolish/selfish/thoughtless or decisions that I didn't pull the trigger on that would have been smart/helpful/generous. It doesn't really matter. I'll find something. (Sister Mary Huberta would be so proud except I'm sure she's been dead for at least thirty years.)

While I have woulda/coulda/shoulda-ed myself on a variety of subjects often enough to regularly drive my husband to reach for that bottle of Cabernet, there is no area of my life that gets me hopping back on the good old Guilt Train more than motherhood. I'm like an actress who only believes the bad reviews.When I look back, I seem to fixate only on my "flops" and never my "hits". (Maybe that's why I'm so crazy about the moms on The Middle and The Goldbergs. Not all of us can be Clair Huxtable.)

I guess I should be thankful that one thing I never had to do was be a full-time working mom. I always thought I'd go back to teaching once the kids came but between our stint overseas and a husband that traveled a lot, I didn't end up doing much beyond a few consulting gigs. And even that was tough - finding a sitter, scrambling when the kids were sick, trying to talk to a client with someone tugging on your pants begging you for a Fudgesicle. I can only imagine what it would have been like if I had had to do it Monday thru Friday, fifty weeks a year.

Today my daughter's maternity leave is over. She is joining the ranks of the Working Mom. Luckily for her, she has a couple of grandmas that are eager to help and a job that allows her to bring her little guy with her whenever she needs to. He'll be in the room next door (she works in an early childhood educational facility) and she'll be able to pop in whenever she can. But that won't solve all her problems - getting on a schedule, bundling him in a snowsuit at 7:00 a.m., exhaustion, trying to find time for her husband (not to mention herself), paying child-care fees, and missing her baby like crazy will be obstacles she'll have to face for the foreseeable future. I know the next few weeks will be tough but I know she'll make it work.

And I'm going to do everything I can to make sure she doesn't feel guilty about a damn thing.