As You Like It: Guilting the Lilly

Ah, guilt. The bottomless well that never dries out. We give it, we get it, sometimes we ask for it when we do really stupid things. But the worst, the very worst, is the guilt that we give ourselves courtesy of the “should” voices in our heads. The “you-should-be-doing-this” or, inversely, “you-shouldn’t-have-done-that.”

Years ago I participated in a moms’ group to convince myself that my new-mom fears were normal. It seemed to me that someone in my family was always being short-changed because of our new baby. Either the house wasn’t clean enough, or the laundry wasn’t done enough, the meals weren’t gourmet enough, or the romantic life with my husband was definitely not romantic enough, especially since I tended to fall asleep in the middle of dinner.

I listened to our facilitator tell us that women were forever “making nice” to everyone but themselves. “We’re always making sure that everyone is happy, but when was the last time you made sure that you were happy?” I remember thinking that she was nuts. I only had a few hours every day to do everything, so why would I ever waste that time on me? The very idea made me uncomfortable. And after all these years, I’m still not completely comfortable with the concept. Guilt keeps me nicely in line.

You would think that by now women would have learned not to let guilt run roughshod over them, but if anything it’s getting worse. According to Francie LaTour’s article “The Bad Mother Complex” in the March 13 issue of the Boston Globe:

… a mommy blogger can make an entire career trafficking in guilt, wearing her failures like badges of honor: “I let my infant watch five hours of TV!” “My toddler dunked his head in the toilet!” Whether you’re a blue-suit executive, a bank teller, or Dr. Phil, we all know about family, work, conflict, and guilt.

Years ago I was deliriously happy working as a computer programmer at a small engineering company. The job made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven. Unlike my former teaching gig, there was no showing up at 7 a.m., no 20-minute lunches, no cafeteria duty, and no endless take-home work. I had a whole hour for lunch, dealt only with fairly rational adults, and best of all, I left my work at work. When I was home I wasn’t marking papers and preparing brilliant lesson plans. The lines were definite and distinct — work was work and home was home and never the twain did meet. As a result I was sane, relaxed and guilt free.

But when Lisa was born it all changed. I had been given a very generous six months leave, and then I could return part-time for six months. It sounded very reasonable at the time. That was before two things happened: new-mommy guilt and very few available daycare slots. Every day brought new opportunities for guilt, even while at home full time with my baby. Later on, when I began searching for daycare, it body-slammed me. Even if the place was clean and staffed with loving caregivers, it was not good enough for my princess.

I ended up becoming a stay-at-home mom for many years, but even then I dealt with a level of Am-I-a-good-enough-mom? guilt. But when I began to work part time, I faced the real stuff. In LaTour’s article she cited a study done by researchers at the University of Toronto. It threw new light on:

…the guilt question by quantifying the emotions we experience as work and family boundaries become increasingly blurred and measuring the effect those emotions have on our psychological well-being. In this study, published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, about 1,800 American workers were asked how often they were contacted outside the workplace by phone, e-mail, or text about work-related matters. According to the findings, frequent contact by bosses, co-workers, or clients led to increased feelings of guilt — but only among women.

The guilt had nothing to do with women’s actual ability to navigate competing obligations at work and at home; on the contrary, the study found that logistically, women were able to juggle the two spheres just as well as men. It’s how women felt about themselves while doing that juggling that set them apart.

We women can handle the work load — it’s the guilt load we can’t manage. We’re always making nice and taking care of everyone but us.

Both my girls are now grown and independent. You would think that I would be guilt free. You would think wrong. I still feel awful if I have to work when Lisa or Mariel wants to spend time with me. I’m still the horrible mother who can’t do enough. Added to that is a new frustration that whispers in my ear: “You should have gone back to work earlier so that the family’s finances would be more secure and you could be helping your kids more!” That was finally laid to rest last week when Mariel confided that amongst all her friends, she was the only one who was brought up in a happy family. This time she was the one bugged by the guilt monster whenever she told her friends that she loved spending time with her parents.

Guilt — no matter which road women choose, it’s there. The gift that keeps on giving. It’s time we wrapped it up and labeled it: return to sender.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Apr 6 2011. Filed under As You Like It, Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.