Sallyjo kind of had a point when she commented that if I felt guilty about giving Kyle a pacifier or a bottle, motherhood was going to be a very long road for me. Granted she could have made that point while being a little less ... bitchy ... but she wasn't revealing anything too shocking, was she? When you sign up for this job, don't you kind of understand that it's a long, never-ending road? It's not like I'll wash my hands of Kyle when he's one or ten or eighteen or just being a giant pain in my ass (LIKE LAST NIGHT, AHEM). He's kind of mine ... forever, you know? I'm going to be a mom for the rest of my life, so, yes, I'd say it is going to be a long road, whether I feel guilty along the way or not.
Guilt is tricky and it's a slippery slope and it's toxic, too, but it's also a painfully normal emotion for not just mothers but for all women, I think. Perhaps it's just me that regularly feels it, but I'd be willing to wager it's not. When we don't have nine million balls in the air, a cloud of failure starts to settle above us. We're self-critical to a fault, and then you throw a life into the mix -- a life that is totally, completely dependent on our choices and decisions -- and there is kind of a helluva lot riding on us not screwing up. Insane pressure + perfection being a total impossibility = GUILT FEST!
(Not to mention our lives are not isolated existences and every choice we make can be judged by friends and strangers. And nothing alleviates guilt like being judged by other imperfect people, right?)
I've been a mother for fifteen seconds, but it seems to me that no matter what choices we make as mothers, there is one universal thing we can do to ensure our kids are happy: be happy ourselves. Whether it's putting my screaming child down in his crib for a few minutes, so I can take some deep breaths or supplementing a bottle every now and then so the middle-of-the-night feedings aren't something I physically dread or leaving my guy with someone I trust so I can go to lunch with a friend, I know that when I am less frustrated, less wound up, less panicked and, yes Sallyjo, less guilty, I am a better mother.
You may have very strong opinions about bottle feeding or day care or crying-it-out or the glass of wine I allowed myself to have tonight (yum). You may send me studies that support those opinions. You may even be right, but thankfully you aren't my concern. Kyle is. And I am no good to my son when I'm on the verge of breaking down or when I'm denying how I genuinely feel. Sometimes I feel worn out, spread thin, scared, frustrated, GUILTY, and if I bury those feelings, they won't ever go away. Addressing them lessens them and allows me to go about sticking his adorable feet in my mouth for a mid-day snack.
Kyle was awake for much of the night last night and, hey, that means I was awake for much of the night last night, and it made today especially challenging. There's just not much you can physically do without at least a couple hours of sleep, so I put Kyle on my chest around noon today and let him nap there. It meant I couldn't do the dishes or make lunch or fold laundry or check the mail or check in with work, and the guilt of all the things I wasn't doing started to sneak up on me and press down on my chest along with my son's surprisingly heavy head. And then I took a deep breath and acknowledged that there are going to be some things I consistently suck at (finishing chores; getting dinner on the table; etc) and some things (my son) that will always be more important than that which I suck at. I can't pretend that I won't ever feel guilty along this long road of motherhood and womanhood, but I can say that I know it's not ever going to do me or my little man any bit of good to paste on a fake smile while going ABSOLUTELY BATSHIT INSANE inside my own head.
So I'll pour a glass of wine, I'll let Mike take a late-night feeding, I'll plan lunch dates and dinner dates and time-alone-with-General Hospital dates in order to de-stress. Feeling sane and together is more important than feeling perfect. And, sometimes sanity comes with a little side dish of guilt.
Thank god it also comes with a full dish of this:
(A picture I just found of Kyle when he was roughly 10 minutes old.)