Guilt in motherhood: why it appears and how to manage it emotionally

Guilt in motherhood is a taboo subject that affects the quality of life of many women.

Being a mother is not an easy task, it involves learning through experiences and knowing how to adapt it to our other roles.

Guilt appears as a common feeling in women especially when they are mothers, since this role involves a great responsibility, wanting to perform it as well as possible, being normal that not always meet or reach the desired expectations.

Therefore, in order for this guilt to affect the mother and her child as little as possible, it is important that she learns to accept, knowing that this feeling does not make her a worse mother and that there is no right way to act. Allow yourself to live the experience of being a mother that you want, as this is the only way to achieve happiness and form a healthy and secure bond with your baby.

In this article we explain better why guilt appears in mothers and what effects it generates.We also show some recommendations so that you can face it better and reduce its intensity.

The feeling of guilt in mothers

To be a mother is a role that the society has assumed like habitual and the idea that all the women must and can carry out it is promoted.. Being a frequent fact, motherhood can be seen as an easy activity, but far from being so, being a mother involves a series of difficulties, contradictions, pleasant thoughts and emotions, but also unpleasant ones that can alter our state, such as fear, frustration, uncertainty or guilt.

The role of motherhood is understood as intrinsic, as something that every woman should know how to do for the sake of her life. something that every woman should know how to do by the simple fact of being a woman. and often fail to consider and take into account the difficulty, responsibility and complications involved in the task of having and caring for a child. In addition to this lack of vision of difficulty, it is also conceived as obvious that the woman will always know how to act in the most correct way and that she should do so always looking first for the baby.

This thinking is in the woman before she has her child and intensifies with the birth of the child, and is also reinforced by the general belief of society. The thought that her behavior must always be the best, that she must always know how to act and that she must always put her child before all other needs are beliefs that are always difficult to fulfill and that on many occasions come into contradiction with others, thus generating the aforementioned feeling of guilt.

Guilt will arise in mothers when they realize that it is really impossible to be a model mother and fulfill all the beliefs and expectations they had set for themselves, when thoughts appear in their mind that contradict the thought they should have and they believe that they are doing something wrong and should correct and act better for their own benefit and for the people around them.

It is usual to think that to do something well we have to focus only on that and forget everything else.But in this case, in order to achieve a better performance in the long term and a better state of the woman, it is better that she does not leave aside other functions and remembers that she also has other roles as a woman, daughter and the most important as an individual person.

Since it is difficult (not to say impossible) to fulfill all the expectations that we form of how a good mother should be, thoughts such as: "I am not good enough as a mother", "I do not know how to do it well", "I feel tired", "I could do it better"... will appear in women. We see then that these are very general thoughts and that they are linked to and depend on many behaviors and actions.

Why does this feeling of guilt appear?

The feeling of guilt appears when we believe that we are not doing something well and we think that we could do it better. Even sometimes it is not only a belief originating in individual self-esteem; we may feel judged by others.We may feel judged by others and this fact may also lead to a feeling of guilt.

In relation to motherhood, guilt is a very common feeling, since there will always be a better way to act or proceed, we can always be more patient, more understanding, more loving, more responsible... always focusing on the negative aspects. The level of self-demand is very high, always wanting to do the best possible for our child to have the best.

One of the biggest contradictions comes when the mother realizes that she also needs to rest, to disconnect? In short, she needs to take time for herself. This feeling causes guilt to arise, as she will believe that she is not fulfilling the task of being a mother and that she is selfish for preferring to dedicate time to herself rather than to the baby.

Thus we see how, in order for guilt to appear, it is not necessary for the mother to actually act badly or do something wrong, but rather it emerges from expectations and from wanting to make everything perfect.. Therefore, it is not an indicator of bad behavior in the mother. That is to say, it is common for the mother to be acting well, doing well, but to feel a sense of guilt.

Thus, there is a social imaginary, a belief of what it means to be a mother and how one should act, which is really what ends up generating guilt. Many times a way of acting is not better than another, but it will depend on which one adapts better with the way of doing of each mother or family.

How does guilt affect motherhood?

This feeling of guilt will have a negative effect on the mother, since it will not allow her to act as she would really do it or if she chooses to do what she would like to do, her state of discomfort will increase and she will feel guiltier and worse as a mother.. Similarly, it will also affect the relationship between the baby and the mother, because the mother's constant self-blame will create a barrier between the two that will hinder the creation of a secure bond or attachment.

That is to say, the fact of feeling bad for not acting as theoretically is the best way, may be more detrimental to the relationship with the child, affecting him/her more than if the mother simply acted as she feels. We see how guilt is invalidatingThe mother can be annulled, transmitting this feeling to the child and leaving aside what is really important, thus altering the ability to connect with him.

How to deal with the feeling of guilt?

One point that is very relevant to remember is that there are many ways to act as a mother, all of which are equally valid. It is impossible that there is only one right way to act, as each person is different and therefore each one of us will need different things to be well. Children are different, mothers are different, families are different, so the way we act may also be different.

So, let's see how we can reduce this feeling of guilt that harms us in our role as mothers, ourselves and our relationship with the baby.

1. Being aware of how I am feeling

Many times we feel bad, in discomfort, but we don't stop to understand what it is. we do not stop to understand what it is that generates this bad feeling that does not allow us to feel well.. It is essential to identify the thoughts that generate the feeling of guilt in order to face them and reduce them.

2. Normalize guilt

As guilt is one more feeling that appears in different facets of our life, sometimes being functional and indicating us that we must change and improve and other times harming us and not allowing us to be ourselves.. Therefore, as a mother we must assume that this feeling is very likely to appear, but we should not give it more importance, if we see that we are not really doing anything wrong, we will try to accept it, learning to live with it and this will be the way in which we will get that this will decrease.

3. Being a mother is a constant learning process

To be a mother is something that we learn with experienceWe make mistakes and rectify them by adapting ourselves to the different circumstances and to our baby. Thus, we see again how to act in one way or another will depend on the situation and experience of each one of us, and we cannot blame ourselves for not doing it in a particular way. There is no manual on how to be a good mother, it is something that we will learn and model throughout motherhood.

4. There is time for everything

Each person has different roles, being all of them compatible with each other, being able to adapt to each other to be able to exercise them all. In the same way, being a mother does not mean losing your other roles.You can continue to work, meet your friends, go out with your partner or take time for yourself, to do what you like, as this is a good way to recharge your batteries and recover energy.

We cannot properly meet our baby's needs if we do not meet our own, if we do not rest, if we do not take care of ourselves and if we do not have time for ourselves.

5. Choose how you want to act as a mother

It is normal that the people around us want to give us advice, since they have probably gone through the experience of being a mother and want to help us, but as we have seen, sometimes the way they propose to us is not the way we would do it. Therefore, it is good to listen to all the recommendations to get ideas and know different ways of proceeding, but who has the final decision on how to act is you..

Don't feel guilty for acting the way you feel because it is the only way to feel good about yourself and take better care of your child.

6. Express how you feel

Many times we understand that if we feel guilty it is because we have done something wrong or that it is something strange to feel this way, we are not good mothers. But if we share these thoughts and feelings with other people, especially other women who are mothers, we will realize that this feeling of guilt is common, reassuring us and helping us to understand that we are no worse for having it..