Mother Guilt Revisted

There was a time in my life when I bought actual wheat which I ground into flour in order to give my family the most nutritious bread, cookies, cakes, etc. I baked everyday. The cookie jar was always full. We never bought bread. We made doughnuts, muffins, gingerbread, coffee cakes for snacks. Biscuits, rolls, cornbread accompanied every evening meal.


We ate home grown eggs, drank homegrown milk, and home grown vegetables. I made our own jams and jellies. I canned our own garden produce.

We watched little TV. The children played for hours outside using their imaginations. As a family, we ate meals together, went to church, visited grandparents regularly, spent summer days at the beach and winter days were spent reading, performing plays, making things, etc.

Sounds great, right? I had worked very hard to achieve what I used to call, “an Ozzie and Harriet existence in an Ozzie Osbourne world”. Some of you are drooling, some are hating me right about now, some of you are wondering what the catch is.

This was yet another lesson in the futility of “mother guilt”. I felt so good about our life at this time. I had come close to my idea of family perfection. My children, however, had different ideas. I began to get the following complaints, “Homemade cookies AGAIN? When are you going to get us store bought ones like the other kids at school have?”

“Mom, how come you don’t have a job? All my friends get to go to a babysitter’s after school. “

This is the one that really got to me, “My best friend goes to her Dad’s on weekends. I only get to come here. It’s not fair!!”

Once more, I realized that feeling guilty about what I did or didn’t do was a total waste of time!! No matter what I did they would find something to hate. It’s the nature of the parent-child relationship. I’ve also come of know something else. I now know that most of my choices as a parent were for me to become the type of parent I wanted to be. Our children will grow up to become the kind of parents that they want to be. They will not follow exactly in my footsteps and really, I don’t want them to.

It’s like painting pictures. We all use the same basic colors but our paintings all come out different. That’s the way it is supposed to be. So, don’t worry-be happy!

That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?