Do you suffer from mommy guilt sometimes?

Read more to find out how Angela, a full time working mother copes with the moster of mommy guilt in this guest post.

Coping with Mommy Guilt

As a working mother of two young daughters, I know too much about the emotional rollercoaster of mommy guilt. Sometimes it’s that nagging voice in my head saying I didn’t spend much quality time with my kids that day because I was too busy, or it’s that sick feeling in my gut that I’m impatient with my kids because I’m too tired and overwhelmed to have any patience left at the end of the day.

Or I feel like an underachiever because I just can’t give my job as much of myself as I use to. This balancing act of motherhood is hard. I’m sure it was mentioned out there in those how to mother books but I think I must have missed reading that part.

I had extreme anxiety about going back to work after the birth of my second daughter. We didn’t have any family within six hours so it was my husband and I against THEM. I just kept envisioning myself literally losing my mind.

Being short and impatient with my oldest daughter, not liking my new baby because she was a more difficult baby to handle, fighting with my husband, and just utter chaos in our household on top of hating work because I’d have to be away from home eight hours a day dealing with other people’s children instead of my own babies that needed me at home.

My life as a working mother was like this huge demon waiting out there to swallow me whole.

And over the last year and half at times it has felt like I was drowning in that black void of mommy guilt and never ending responsibilities and to do lists.

At other times, I’m walking with my head high and shouting to the world, “I got this. It’s not so hard.” But then the next day it is again. It’s taken me some time but I’ve completely had to let any kind of perfection go.

Motherhood isn’t meant to be perfect; it’s a journey where we learn and grow as we go. I don’t keep up the house as well as I use to, in some ways I’m not as dedicated of a worker as I use to be, and when I do start drowning in that black hole of mommy guilt, I’ve learned to just stop.

I put it all down to rock my babies, push them in the swing, take a late night walk, talk with them about their day because being their mommy is the thing that makes me the happiest so it’s taken awhile but I’ve learned everything else can wait.

There will be a time for certain things in life later, but my babies will only be babies and children for a short amount of time, and I don’t want the guilt of what I missed to haunt me years later down the road.

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Angela Glenn is a full time working mom of two young daughters. She has found the balancing act of career and motherhood a very tough road to walk at times. Share in her journey at “Time with A & N” at http://glennbabies.blogspot.com.