In part one of this series, I described an experience in which my daughter had accomplished something really big, and how I’d done a thousand and one things to support and celebrate her and honor her achievement. I also “confessed” that there was something I didn’t do—because I really didn’t want to. I had reached my limit of what I could give and still be okay. It felt like I couldn’t bear to do it.
But what I didn’t do, it turned out, was something that my daughter really wanted, and far more important (as is often the case) than everything I did do. This one missing piece symbolized how much I valued her efforts. And not only that, it turned out to be the gauge for how selfish or loving I am—how willing to inconvenience myself for her or anyone.
Nonetheless, despite the arsenal of guilt coming at me, I didn’t feel guilty. I felt very sad and very angry—but not guilty. The absence of guilt, which has been such a constant in my life as a mom, surprised me and led me to ask myself what was different this time. What had allowed me to hold onto my own worth and good mom status in the face of what could have been a very different and far more complicated experience.
What was different was how I responded to her blame. As soon as I felt it coming at me and the bad mom narrative taking form, I asked myself, “Do I feel genuinely guilty for this choice? Or is this learned guilt—guilt I’m supposed to feel, that’s been assigned to me by my culture and now my family? Have I violated my own values? Have I done something truly unkind?” The answer was “no” on all fronts. This was guilt I’d been conditioned to feel.
I then reminded myself of everything I had done over the last seven months to celebrate and support my child. I acknowledged my own efforts and bowed to myself for being such a good mom. I’d been pausing throughout the months to honor myself, so it was easy to call up. But in navigating this situation, I chose to focus on all the good stuff, what was present, rather than joining my daughter in what was lacking. I refused to be her accomplice in discounting and invisibilizing my goodness and hard work. In the past, I too would have focused on what I didn’t do, but I chose not to do that to myself this time, which was a fundamental shift.
At the same time, I asked myself to name exactly what my crime was. Guilt thrives in vagueness and generality—it’s allergic to specificity and light. Guilt sticks when it’s a wallpaper experience, a background sense that we’ve done something “wrong,” even if we don’t know exactly what it is or why it’s so bad. Guilt then morphs into its more dangerous cousin: shame, the sense that we haven’t just done something bad but that we are bad. But guilt and shame are de-fanged when we name their specific source and hold it up to the light. Guilt and shame can’t survive under the lantern of the truth.
In this case, my crime was departing the event a few minutes early—not sticking it out to the bitter end, but leaving her to come home “alone” with just her sister and best friend. But this was just a top layer, what was my real crime underneath that—what was the meaning attached to that reality? Boiled down, my departure meant that I’d chosen to take care of my own needs—over hers. I’d chosen myself, which, in the storyline, “made” me a selfish and bad mother.
The grand cultural narrative I’d challenged with my choice is this: A good mom never takes care of her own needs over her child’s needs. A good mom has no needs other than making her child happy. A good mom is responsible for her children’s happiness and never disappoints.
At the same time, I went against our culture’s story that a mother should be able to bear any physical or psychological conditions for the sake of her child. She should have no limitations and be super-human when it comes to energy, stamina, and capacity. She should also have no unwanted feelings about sacrificing her needs, and no need for appreciation for her efforts. I had both honored my own needs and demonstrated my limitations and boundaries, both physically and psychologically. Even knowing that my daughter wanted me to be able to stay, I didn’t want to stay, couldn’t stay, and chose not to stay.
After getting clear on the narrative I’d challenged, I flipped the script. I told myself (out loud) that I’m allowed to have my own needs—it doesn’t make me bad or selfish. Secondly, I named the truth, that I’m unable and unwilling to stand out in the cold anymore. I won’t put myself through it; it’s not fair to me. Furthermore, I can’t meet every physical task that’s asked of me. And that’s okay because it’s the truth. Finally, I acknowledged to myself that it’s okay if my child doesn’t get exactly what she wants from me in every way at every moment. It’s okay if she’s disappointed. She and I will both survive her disappointment; she can be disappointed, and I can still be a good mom.
In doing so, I owned my imperfect-ness—or as I would describe it, my perfectly imperfect humanness. So too, I own that I am a mother who is entirely devoted to her child, and will do anything I can for her that doesn’t involve harming or abandoning myself.
I also acknowledged that I’m willing to hold space for my daughter’s sadness and anger, to understand the feelings that my limitations create. I’m willing to make room for her disappointment and empathize with her experience of having a mother with needs that are different from her needs. My heart is open because her disappointment no longer has to mean that I am to blame. I can thus listen and give her the loving attention she needs, which previously had been attached, exclusively, to my willingness to stay on and suffer to the end of her event.
Even if she still buys into the cultural narrative, I don’t have to. I don’t have to and am no longer willing to link my having needs and boundaries—or her disappointment, to my being a bad mom.
This is the shift that we need to make as women and mothers, to remove the story that we’ve learned to assign to our choices. Guilt is the price we’ve paid to get to be a “good mom” in a storyline that’s not only fictional, but false. Questioning the narrative itself, rather than abiding by it and playing by broken rules, is how we remove our Velcro suit and become Teflon to guilt. Furthermore, it’s how we free ourselves and ultimately, change the cultural narratives that keep us imprisoned.
I am limited—and—I am a good mom. This is reality—without any story attached.
