I feel it, I hear it and I see it all the time. Me, other mums, other parents full stop. But I don't think its real... I don't think our kids really intend for us to feel guilty especially when they are little. Maybe they do manipulate the parents as they grow to gain something but my story for today is one of my experience with my little kiddies.
I've been away for 10 days now in Queensland doing massive amounts of speaking events, sponsorship of a convention, workshops and finishing off with an expo in a few days time. Its been so full on. I've met almost 500 new people and have been blessed to have the opportunity to start working with lots of new authors who have joined our Ultimate 48 Hour Author retreats.
I basically have not had time to miss my family as my brain has been pre-occupied by event after event, packing, unpacking, speaking and having conversations. I look forward to our Anzac Day long weekend away with the family at the end of this week. But my story is not about what I have been doing, but more about the way I feel when I am away.
In my opinion I know that I am doing the best I can to provide for my young family of 5 and the business requires me to travel a lot interstate usually for a few days at the most during the week, but this has been a long stint of lots of opportunities. Today during a conversation on FaceTime, I was triggered by my father in law who always likes to push our buttons around how our family is not of the conventional type. I make the money while my husband nurtures the family and supports me in the business as much as he can.
My father in law is a cool guy and I love talking with him and hanging out. He has a way to always trigger me around our role reversal situation and today especially with the comments around the fact that the Baby (Xara - 16 months old) does not remember me because I have been away a long time. I chose to ignore the comments and got on with my day.
My mindset is strong, I know this guilt stuff is not real, its made up in our minds as I know I do the best I can to provide for the family and still spend tons of quality time with them.
It was really lovely to hear when I spoke to my husband earlier tonight that he had stood up to his dad around the comments he always tends to drop. He did it in a very positive way not assuming his dad knew what he was doing. We have this special way of addressing issues in our family and it goes like this:
'I know you probably don' realise you are doing...... It makes me/us feel...... In future please........'
This approach is about not facing the situation/conversation in Blame Mode, it comes from a place that the other person is most likely not doing what they are doing on purpose to hurt you and it gets us the outcome of the change you want.
Stuart said it this way and his dad took the feedback and apologised to him. I was also glad he noticed the remarks and stood up for me.
So there you go, mummy guilt is always going to be there, how you handle it and the choices you make will determine how you are able to move forward and succeed in your dreams and goals. Remember, your children ultimately want you to have a life and you are modelling a life they will most likely mirror in the future. Do you want them to be solely focussed on their children and forget about themselves or have a good balance of doing their own thing and being a great parent.
I know I want my children to be independent as The Biggest gift a Child can give its Parents is the Gift of Independence.
Love Nat x
