Tip #3 for Eliminating Mom Guilt

Keep it All in Perspective 

(And this is NOT the "perspective" that grandmothers who have forgotten what it was like as moms of young kids talk about) 

Here's some perspective-- Imagine if you went to work everyday at a place like this:

You went to make a company purchase & your Boss came with you and when you went to the check out stand he preceded to yell at you at the top of his lungs about how you should have purchased something that he liked & that he wanted. He did this for the entire transaction & then when you got into the car to drive back to the office he did not apologize and he turned his head away from you and fell asleep until you got back to the office.

It was lunch break & you had an agreement that you would make lunches for a coworker & when you gave her her lunch she took one look in the bag, threw it on the floor and stomped off to her cubicle muttering "I hate tuna fish sandwiches."

read more after the jump



During a particularly hairy deadline your boss came up to you and starting asking if you would take some time out & read over a document with him. You kindly said that you could do it after this deadline, but that you needed to finish this. He then began to scream at you & started throwing rubber band balls and paper clips at your back & ran around in circles til he fell over then proceeded to bang his head on the floor saying that he'd stop if you would look over the document with him.

You got up from your desk and headed to the bathroom. On the way there a coworker ran up to you and threw herself at you, clinging onto your feet. She held on screaming that you needed to see this project she was working on right then.

Finally it was time to leave work & your boss carpooled with you. On the drive home he sang the songs from the radio at the top of his lungs and at every chorus he spat out at you and laughed hysterically....all the way home.

DO you think that ANYONE would try to make you feel guilty that you were not a good employee if under this kind of pressure you one day cracked and yelled at the top of your lungs that you have had enough or if during a a very trying time you were not 100% under control all the time if this is the random experiences you had every single day?????

So why in the WORLD do we EVER let ourselves get pulled down by Mom guilt when this is part of our work environment every day with young children? Now I'm not saying we shouldn't always strive for personal improvement & self control, what I am saying is next time you see a mother struggling with three kids in a grocery store & one is throwing a fit & one is running up & down the aisle & the third is whining about not getting a treat, that instead of thinking in your mind, "That lady needs to get her family under control" or some other extremely "judging a person on one moment" criticism, that you replace that thought with one of compassion & you help her for goodness sakes. Start dancing with the child running up & down the aisle. Introduce yourself to the one whining & tell her a fascinating tale. Or ask her if she needs you to grab her anything. If none of that works, (which often it doesn't when the kids are at "that point")  buy her a fun magazine & some chocolate & surprise her with it after she makes it through the checkout line as a reward for surviving the grocery store with 3 kids.

I am gonna print this post out & carry it around with me when I am past the young kids stage & re-read it if ever I start to forget what it is like with young ones. I am also going to carry around a flipbook of pictures of my house in utter chaos & show it to the young mom who is leery of me helping her put her groceries in her car,  not because I'm a stranger but because her car is so full of kid junk that she can't even open the door without some chicken nugget encrusted sundry flinging out and hitting her in the stomach. Then she'll know that I've been there & I didn't always (hardly ever) have it under control & I would have loved a little less guilt & a little more love.

(Tips # 1 & #2 can be found here & here)