Kiss parental guilt goodbye

Following up on my pros and cons article about being a working mom, below is a poem about parental guilt. Many of us have experienced parental guilt at one point or another. Parents will always find reasons for parental guilt, and me included. But I'm going to try my best this year not to dwell on it. I don't do all the traditionally "bad" things on this list and can only strive to do all the supermom things that are listed here, but the fact that I point them out means I have a long, long way to go with kissing my parental guilt goodbye.

Kiss parental guilt goodbye

Parental guilt is a life sentence of stressing too much;

That we didn’t do enough with such and such.

Like choosing formula feeding over nursing,

Or not spending time with our kids because we’re working.

We regret leaving our kids at daycare

When they start crying with their arms in the air.

We worry about our sick kids when we're at work.
The sad look on their eyes add to the hurt.

We feel badly feeding our kids junk food,

Or yell at them more than we should.

We wish we can schedule weekday playdates.
Like quality time, those also have to wait.

We choose cleaning over sharing playtime,

Or skimp on buying toys to save a dime.

We feel badly sending our kids to grandma’s home

Just because we need some time alone.

We feel guilty when we want to nap

When there are loads of laundry near collapse.

It's not enough the kids are fed and the house is clean,

Or the floors are mopped with no crumb to be seen.

We think we’re bad parents when we turn the TV on

To babysit our kids so we get our housework done.

We also allow our kids to play video games,

And feel worse to have ourselves to blame.

We should stop striving to be perfect for our kids

When such a thing doesn’t exist.

We don’t need to head the PTA.
We should stop stressing over our kids' grades.

We’ll take our kids’ praises when we nuke chicken nuggets –

It’s not always McDonald’s so no need to fret.

We don’t have to coach all our kids’ sports teams –

Driving them to the games is hard enough it seems.

It’s okay to leave our kids home when we travel,

And let the babysitter deal with the unravel.

It's fine if we forget the camera at their recitals.

Not showing up – now that’s suicidal.

We don’t need to sew costumes or mend their clothes.

It takes less time to shop for those.

We don’t have to schedule their entire day with events

When they already are spending time with friends.

Kiss goodbye to parental guilt from here on out.

We’ve earned our kids’ praises; there is no doubt.

We do our best to raise our kids and teach them well,

So if we miss something along the way –

Trust me, it will be hard to tell!

– Mimi Hoang  Kuehn

Many of our kids start school this week. The school year brings on homework, school events, parent conferences, extracurricular activiteis, and most of all, twice as much parental guilt knowing that we can't make it to all those events or stressing about fitting all that in after long days of working.

How are you planning to overcome the parental guilt? What tips do you have to lessen the stress of managing your time during the school year?