Managing Parental Guilt

Responding to misplaced parental guilt

Hey guys,

This post is about parental guilt, which is often misplaced. Chances are you’ve felt it recently, maybe even today.

Parents with perfectionistic tendencies, feel it more often. It can be pretty hard to deal with. At the heart of this kind of guilt is the question; am I a bad parent?

Recently I saw a quote: “enjoy the mess and the chaos because it won’t last” and felt incredibly guilty because at the time I was having a rough month and wasn't really enjoying it - not at all!

I get the idea behind it and I agree - there will be one last restless night of co-sleep, a last piggy back, a last kindy drop off, etc… enjoy every moment to the full and so you don’t regret it later.

But the message forces parents to face fact that they don’t enjoy every moment. Immediately that guilty feeling creeps in.

Looking to expert advice, it turns out that guilt is a thing often linked to “hyperawareness” where one obsessively wonders whether they are doing a good job.

Which got me thinking:

1)    Does having perfectionistic tendencies lead to more parental guilt?  

A PHD Psychologist called Esmarilda Dankaert says in her article about perfectionism  that “the core of perfectionism… is a deep-rooted sense of shame” which originates from an “internalised a belief about yourself that you are inadequate, unlovable, broken, and inherently flawed.” The link between guilt and perfectionism is that hey are sister traits. If you have one – you have the other.

Interesting.

Could all this guilt be something that is linked to the way we were raised? Depending on the messages our parents inherently gave us about mistakes – we developed tendency to focus on our failures and perhaps underfocus on our strenghts and wins....as adults we can expect to feel guilt more often.

Eckhart Tolle also says that “your mind works according to its old conditioning.” He suggests reconditioning your thoughts like this:

“...when those thoughts come, recognize that these are not actual valid thoughts … then in the moment of recognition, they begin to lose their power over you.” Quote from his audio collection 

By noticing when you have a guilty thought – it is conditioning based on your own thoughts and/or your parents response to your failures early on in life. But it's not necessarily real. That will give you the ability to take that thought back and rethink something else.

For example swapping your guiltly thought for this realistic one“I love my kids and they don’t need me to be perfectly happy all the time.”

There you have it.

No more thinking of yourself as a worm - you are a butterfly!

Next time you feel “hyper aware” of your performance as a parent – it’s an opportunity to recognise that for what it is: old, invalid conditioning.

I’m witnessing that millennial parents seem to be a generation of cycle breakers. Which is incredible. I’m so proud to be part of this generation. We are (truly) trying our best to deal with the burdens passed to us, and reparenting ourselves.

Our goal should not be to ensure everyone is happy and joyful all the time. That is irrational.

Instead our goal can be something like this: to treat my kids with respect and kindness regardless of my mood.

After all – if we find our own negative emotions unacceptable, what does that say to our kids?

If we can’t accept our own negative emotions, what does that teach our kids about theirs?

Want we really need is for them to know that our sadness, anger and fears are acceptable too - we can talk through them to a therapist or journal about them or explore them with a good friend but we shouldn't feel guilty for our shortcomings! I’m grateful that at the age of 36, I’m finally learning to stop feeling guilty that I'm not a perfect mum and instead I'm beginning feel proud where I'm at.

I hope you feel like the burden is a little lighter after reading this. My hat goes off to all of you who are giving it your best. You are doing amazing and remember our kids don't need us to be perfect! They need us to be real.

Have a great week,