Top tips for dealing with Mum Guilt

Well everyone, today I got the award for being the World’s worst mum!

My youngest had her school trip today, off to the woods. I read the letter from school about it last week, so sent her off today with her welly boots, waterproof coat and a packed lunch box. We got to school in plenty of time (well, I mean we weren’t racing through the school gates with minutes to spare before registration) and got to the classroom to find that all the other children were wearing their normal clothes from home, whilst my daughter was in her school uniform… Perfect!

Queue the horrific mum guilt! I frantically text some of my mum friends ‘Did you send yours in with school uniform on?’, ‘Are your children wearing normal clothes from home?’ and I basically got messages back laughing, because yes, I was the only one who had sent her child in with her uniform on!

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I suffer horrifically with mum guilt, honestly, it's just the worst thing isn’t it?? I could have cried!

What causes Mum Guilt?

I don't actually think that having mum guilt is always such a bad thing, mum guilt can just show how much you care.It gives you the opportunity to analyse how you are doing things and think of ways to do things better. 

Life feels so busy. After being at home in Lockdown on and off over the last two years, I have found getting back into school, after-school clubs, playdates and catching up with missed family and friends super busy and quite overwhelming, Most days I feel like I am dropping balls all over the place! There are a lot of balls that I keep up in the air, but there seem to be more dropping than staying in the air. When those balls are parenting-related, I just can’t help really beating myself up about it.

I’m so so lucky that I have been able to be a full-time stay-at-home mum whilst my children have grown up over the last 7 years. Just before my youngest started school last year, I got the opportunity to start up The Parenting Daily, which seemed like perfect timing for me and was exactly what I was interested in. I honestly never thought I would have my own business, but with both children in school full time I thought I would have lots of spare time (LOL that didn’t quite happen) so I thought I would give it a go.

But wow, it is really really tough being a working mum, trying to juggle everything, constantly rearranging priorities and making sure everyone is happy with everything they need. I honestly think the hardest thing about it all is the mum guilt! One feeling that has also really shocked me is how much I actually like working. Being a stay-at-home mum will always be my main focus and top priority, but I also really love The Parenting Daily! I thought that it might just be something I did on the side as a hobby for maybe 20 minutes a day, but it’s a lot harder work than that and I really want it to be successful!

I thought I would try and write down a few tips to help manage mum guilt. Mainly to try and make myself feel better today, but if I can help anyone else that would be really amazing!

Top Tips for Dealing with Mum Guilt.

1. Get a REALLY good group of mum friends

I am really lucky to have a great group of mum friends, who are always at the end of a Whatsapp message or on the school run to chat to! So, whenever I’m feeling a bit down or that I’ve messed up I can message them to vent about it, 9 times out of ten if they haven’t had a similar experience that week they will have had it at some point and that can really make things seem much better. If they haven’t done it, they will always offer some kind of support (If they’re anything like my friends the support is normally advising me to eat some chocolate to make the world ok again!).

2. Recognise when things are getting a bit frantic

A lot of mum guilt comes from forgetting things or snapping at our little ones, these events generally happen because life is pretty crazy and fast-paced. Our brains can’t think properly when we are in that Frantic state of trying to rush about getting things done, and this is when forgetfulness and snapping happen. When you feel like things are getting a bit frantic try and take a step back to refocus. It may seem like you don’t have time to do this when you are rushing to get out of the door for school, but you will actually be able to function better and faster when your brain is out of that fight-or-flight frantic mode.

3. Accept Help

My Husband will be screaming at the computer screen reading this as my worst trait is that I am AWFUL at asking for or accepting help. I have a fantastic family network and lovely friends who often offer to help with my little ones, but I just want to do it all myself! In reality, though, there are some days when I can’t do it all and I need a bit of time to myself to recharge. So don’t be like me, ask for and accept help! It will make your life much easier.

4. Gratitude Journalling

I know this is a bit of a weird one to throw in, but it’s so easy at the end of the day to think about what we haven’t done. All the things we haven’t achieved, the ways that we messed up – it all just spirals, especially when you get into bed. So before going to bed, if you can try writing down a few things that you did do that day – did you get the kids to school on time? Perfect! Did you make them laugh today? Amazing! Was the weather nice? Great! You will actually be surprised at how many good things have happened, it’s just about switching up your mindset. Changing thoughts from negative ones to positive ones.

5. Always, always read the letters from school properly!

We’re all guilty of it, we get lots of emails from the school and sometimes we are in the middle of something and there are just too many words to read! So, we skim-read it! How many times do we mess up because of this? For me, this is honestly quite a lot! I would of thought I would have learnt my lesson by now, but obviously not. I could save myself a LOT of mum guilt If I just read the school letters properly.

I really hope some of those tips can help you in some way, If you have any other tips I would really love to hear them

To finish off this morning’s story, hopefully, I have redeemed myself. Ten minutes after leaving the school run I was in the middle of a field with our dog and I just couldn’t take the guilt anymore. So I called the school and asked them what time the coach was leaving – only to be told it was leaving now! I ran back across the field, back to the car and drove back home to pick up a change of clothes for my daughter  (including one of her favourite sparkly skirts, which wasn’t really practical for a rainy trip to the woods but hopefully got me some extra brownie points) I then drove up to the woods they were visiting and got there 5 minutes before the coach arrived so I could hand the clothes to her teacher.

A happy ending and hopefully an ending where I’m not quite the worst mum in the world today.