Parental guilt? Gimme a break

Guilt has been a recurring theme in my life recently. More precisely, parental guilt. Not that I’m a stranger to guilt, it is something I’ve written about in the past.

In my family’s present situation, my wife’s been snowed under at work so she’s been feeling guilty about not seeing the kids as she’s been working longer hours. To compensate for this, the children have been getting spoilt and we feel guilty for doing so. My wife’s reduced presence on the home front, meanwhile, means I’ve spent more time than usual looking after both our one year old and five year on my own.

Needless to say, they both have differing needs that need to be met, usually at the same time. I then get pulled in two different directions and feel guilty that neither of them is getting the best of me.

Is this sounding familiar to anyone? I imagine it is. At least I hope so or else I’m probably a dreadful parent (more guilt and self doubt, oh woe is me!).

Yesterday I was hit with a tsunami of guilt coming from several different parents at the same time. I was taking part in a session organised by a market research company called The Pineapple Lounge. It was seeking to establish how brands should market to parents and we were split off into small groups to discuss the things we love and loathe about being a parent.

Getting back to the matter in hand, our group rapidly came up with a list of gripes that will probably be familiar to you.  Among them was a feeling of guilt at using technology and social media too much and, drum roll please, feeling like no one in the family gets the best of their attention. I never doubted that I was alone in feeling this way, but it was fascinating to hear it from several people all at the same time.

The only thing is, there was a dissenting voice in the room and the voice had a delightful Northern Irish accent. I do love a Northern Irish accent. Probably something to do with me living with my County Tyronian grandmother as a young boy.

The accent in question came from Joanne Mallon, life coach and author of Toddlers: an instruction manual (I’ve no idea how I ended up in such company but was very pleased to do so!). I’ll paraphrase, but Joanne basically said; “So long as I know I’ve done my best as a parent I refuse to feel guilty.”

This got me thinking about the enormous effort both my wife and I make as parents. I very quickly built up a list of the things we do and sacrifices we have made for our offspring.

I sacrificed a career to look after the children while my wife flung herself into hers to provide for us all. We put immense effort into selecting out eldest’s school and our youngest’s nursery, we try and do homework every day with our eldest and we are teaching her to swim. I speak to both children in French as well as English and their innocluations are up to date. Their teeth are regularly checked by a dentist and most importantly of all, they’re told they are loved.

Okay, that list was a bit random, but I’m sure any parent that cares for their children could draw up similar. I’d like to think that it compensates for the evenings when the television is on for too long, those moments when tempers are frayed and voices get raised and those mealtimes when I’m exhausted and give in, declaring they don’t have to eat their vegetables.

I know Joanne wouldn’t agree with me, but I think guilt has its place. You always need to strive to do your best and a little guilt surely helps us achieve this. On the other hand, I think us parents who are totally committed to our children can burden ourselves with too much guilt. Maybe we should all take some time out to look at the effort we make as parents and relax a little bit. Christmas is almost upon us and so my present to myself is not to give myself a break from guilt.

On that note, I’m going to sign off for 2014. Thanks to all of you that have read my blogs and commented on them over the past year. Thanks also to Britmums for giving me the opportunity to write this blog. Have a great Christmas and New Year and I’ll be back in January.

About John Adams

John Adams is a married with two young daughters. He has been a stay at home dad for almost four years. John started blogging back in 2012 after being invited to one-too-many "mother and toddler groups." This inspired him to write about the issues he faced as a stay at home dad and the gender barriers men face as parents. John continues to write about lie as a stay at home dad. He also writes about every aspect of parenting; schooling, education, pregnancy and birth, childcare and so on. Over time he has broadened the focus of his blog so he now writes about family finances, photography and occasionally covers men's style and fashion. John was originally a journalist. He concedes, however, that was a long time ago.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• Facebook
|
• More Posts(31)