My question is why? What is going on with that? Women who are clearly intelligent, moral people with a multitude of abilities sit around and feel guilty about, it seems, pretty much everything. If they have a job they feel guilty for not staying home, if they stay home they feel guilty for not having a job and not using their education. We feel guilty for having a dirty house, but then we feel guilty for taking time to clean. We feel guilty for not breastfeeding; we feel guilty if we let our babies sleep with us, and we feel guilty if we put them in a crib. We feel guilty for not enjoying every second of parenthood (to that I say: poopy diapers? Really? Aren't we expecting a lot of ourselves?)We practically feel guilty for breathing.
Well, I decided I'm not doing it. I'm not feeling guilty. I'm not feeling inferior. I'm not playing that game. Here's why: I'm pretty sure I'm going to mess up my son somehow and give him a complex about something, but I don't know what. All I can do is hope I get the big things right and manage to raise a healthy, and moral person, who can make wise choices. If I worry about every little thing I won't enjoy his childhood and chances are I will make it miserable for him as well. Besides, most of the things we feel guilty about aren't really problems at all. All of the ladies I know who are mothers are damn good parents. They love their children and provide them with rich, wholesome environments to learn, love, and play, breastmilk or none. We're all doing the best we know how to do. No one sets out to screw up their child.
I think we, as women, need to go a little easier on ourselves and let go of the guilt.
2 comments:
I love this. In my mind, I wasn't really calling it "guilt" but more like "performance anxiety," like everything I was doing was being judged. What a load of crap!
I second this sentiment and it's high time more people let go of this guilt.
Also, that picture of Max is adorable and we should have a play date!
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