The Guilt of Motherhood, an open letter to Priscilla

Dear Priscilla,

You are about to enter the most guilt-ridden profession: motherhood. From the minute you decided to use a mid-wife or a doctor, there will be someone questioning your decisions. And then you move into breast feed or bottle feed. No matter what you choose there will be nay-sayers.

And don’t get me started on co-sleeping versus a crib.

Career versus stay at home mom?  Wasting your education?

But none of the condemnation you receive will be like the judgment of homeschooling! And that’s only from the people who don’t believe in homeschooling. Within homeschooling there is all the guilt of whether or not you picked the right curriculum, courses, outside activities. And then homeschooling high school!

There are a couple of guidelines I’d like to suggest to you to get through this!

1.  Listen to the Lord. Although there isn’t a book written on how to raise Kekoa (or any subsequent children you may have), God will be there to direct your path.

2.  Consult with your husband. Sometimes it might seem that they don’t care about how you cope, but ask what is important to him. Is it dinner on the table on time? Is it a clean house? Is it a quiet house?

3.  Do what works best for you. There will be a lot of people willing to offer you advice (and I will be one of them! J). But their families are different than your family. Take what you need and throw the rest out. Being a hybrid of many different parenting styles and techniques isn’t a bad thing. In fact, the “bigger the piece of marble, the bigger the sculpture can be.” And, of course, none of your children will have the same personality or needs, so what works for one, probably won’t work for the other and you’ll have heard lots of ideas to give you something else to try.

4.  Be flexible. What works in the beginning weeks, might not work at 6 months. Allow yourself to be changed.

5.  Get plenty of rest. You think this is an easy thing. It is not! Here I am in year 25 of my parenting, and I’m finally getting to the point where I can actually get to bed on time and wake up early happily. (You'll notice the emphasis on "happily", waking up early is a given!)  Maybe the toilets don’t get cleaned because you took a nap while the baby was sleeping. That’s okay. They can get cleaned tomorrow, unless by some chance magic fairies show up!

Some days the guilt might be stifling. You have a bad day, you kicked the dog, dinner burnt, and for some reason the baby has been crying all day, and you can't figure out why. And then you find out that the baby has an ear infection, the sweet little girl can't see well enough to read the songs on the board, and even though you’ve been through phonics 4 times with the child, he still can’t read, and you’re really swamped with guilt.

I could be my usual self and tell you to get over it, it comes with the territory. But the nice response would be to put on some worship music, get into the Word, hold the baby, and the guilt will pass until the next issue arises. I’d like to tell you that the guilt stops after parenting for 25 years, but so far it hasn’t!  Save the guilt for conviction of sin, NOT because you don't do everything perfectly.  If you feed the baby, change his diapers, and keep the Department of Health away, you're doing fine.

Love you,

Mom

P.S.  Anytime you want advice, feel free to ask. J