The Parent Trap: It’s ALL Our Fault—Parental Guilt

by Betsy McMillin

I am feeling a great deal of parental guilt lately.

My eight-year-old daughter has a medical (non-life threatening) condition. She is being tested for a learning disability as well. She is a sweet, bright, funny, happy, silly, shy little girl with an imagination that takes our entire family to hilarious, interesting places. She makes us all laugh, and is a beautiful, loving daughter and sister. Yet, her medical need and learning problems plague me daily. Of my six children, she is the only one who faces these hurdles.

After I try to answer the obvious question “what can we do to help her?” the other burning question comes to the front of my mind: What did I do to cause these problems?

Did I do something different during my pregnancy with her? Was it because I didn’t read to her enough? Did I neglect her early childhood learning? Is there lead paint in the house?

What did I do?? Or not do??

I know full well that perhaps her needs have nothing to do with me and what I did or didn’t do, yet it is impossible to get away from that guilt. It  must be my fault.

Parents are, for whatever reason, in a love-hate relationship with guilt. We can’t get away from it, yet at the same time we realistically know we are not to blame for everything. We can’t be. Some things just are what they are. How egocentric of us to feel that every bad choice our kids make, or many of them, are because of us and our parenting skills! But alas, parents do tend to have inflated egos when it comes to our kids.

We listen to other friends who are parents, and when they blame themselves for their childrens’ wrong doing or poor choices; we rationally tell them that it isn’t their fault. No one is perfect and parenting isn’t an exact science. Yet, we can’t apply this same logic to ourselves and our own parenting.

I see my own mother as one of the best mothers of all time, hands down (see The Parent Trap, May 8, 2011). When talking to her about parenting, something we do often, she has her own guilt stories. She laments that she did not talk to her three daughters about sex. She feels horribly guilty and sees it as the reason for some of our own poor choices or relationship issues earlier in life (dare I say “indiscretions?”). When I look back, not for a second have I ever blamed her or my dad for my poor choices. I own them all. I don’t believe that the lack of a good sex talk or communication paved the road to the problems we may have had or the choices we made. But she sure does. Of course she does, she’s a parent. Could a healthy relationship talking about sex have helped? Perhaps, but no guarantees.

Guilt is a daily occurrence for parents. It comes in small batches, snippets at times, and then again other times in heaping truck loads. I have found guilt creeping into my days lately:

Only parent not taking pictures of their child at a school function: guilt
Not going on a field trip: guilt
Not giving my child music lessons: guilt
Yelling at my daughter for not taking her medicine: guilt
Let my kids eat junky cereal: guilt
Can’t afford to give my daughter the new clothes she craves: guilt
Missed too many hockey games: guilt

Oh, all the guilt! It mounds and mounds every day!

We need to be accountable for what we do as parents and know that many choice are ours to make and that they will affect our children and the people they grow up to be. We also need to admit that we can’t control every aspect of their lives and that part of growing is making mistakes and learning from them. And when they our kids make mistakes, it’s not always our fault.

The crazy part about guilt is that no matter what choices we make, we’ll be able to fit the guilt in. Stay-at-home parent? Guilty for not making more money. Working parent? Guilty for not being home more. No pacifier? Guilty for child sucking his/her thumb. It doesn’t matter what we choose, we will always see the other side and how it might be greener.

I found this quote from FamilyEducation:

Feeling guilty is a habit that may take time to break. Don’t feel guilty about feeling guilty. Just don’t feel guilty. You can’t go back. Concentrate on doing better next time.

While I totally agree with the advice to move forward and concentrate of doing better next time, I have an awfully hard time with “Just don’t feel guilty.” How are parents supposed to do that? I guess we should all take solace in the fact that feeling guilty means we are trying to be the best we can be and feel crummy when we don’t make the mark. We can feel good about a small amount of guilt. It (along with good common sense) keeps us from doing things to our kids that are completely unacceptable. We have all read about parents who go in for a hair appointment and leave their sweet, poor babies in a hot car… apparently no guilt there.

There are four ways to deal with the guilt:

1. Let the guilt boil and fester and make us feel crappy. As though we are not worthy to be parents. Let guilt take over at every turn, at every poor decision. Not a good way to go. Don’t choose this route whenever possible.

2. Chalk it up to “so what? big deal” and let the guilt go, knowing that our kids are not going to die or be emotionally harmed if we didn’t bring the camera to the school play. See the guilt, and understand it, but don’t let it interfere with your parenting. File this one under “I am not perfect. No parent is.” Healthy but difficult.

3. Learn from the guilt and let it help us make better choices next time. Acknowledge that parenting is not meant to be a perfect art (some days not even close) and that it is a learning experience every day. Use the guilt to rethink any uncomfortable or unsatisfactory situation, help it mold you into the kind of parent you want to be. Healthy choice and quite do-able.

4. Come to terms with the guilt in life and how it works: there is not always a person to point a finger at (usually ourselves) for every difficult or less-than-perfect situation. Admit that we are not to blame for all the wrong decisions our kids will make. And they will make them.

Consider this suggestion from What To Do If You Feel Like A Guilt Parent by Nancy Samalin:

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
Whenever you experience guilt, stop and ask yourself whether it’s of the useless or useful variety. Then, if it is productive guilt, give yourself a break by resolving to learn from the experience and respond differently the next time. Most important, work at wiping useless guilt out of your life. You won’t be guilt-free. But you will be guilt-savvy and ready for the next situation that puts your parenting mettle to the test.

I am going to try to get over feeling guilty about why my daughter is the way she is. Her problems and challenges are part of her, make her the person she is in certain ways, and I adore her. I sure don’t feel guilty about that.

I look at my six kids. I see challenges, humor, insight, sweetness, happiness. I see tempers, moodiness, silliness. I see six individuals who test me and will continue to test me at every level. I know that some days I hit my parenting spot on, other days I miss the mark completely. It all shapes my kids into who they are becoming and does have a hand in their future. They will make good choices and bad choices. I am not going to feel guilty about that.

Well, maybe just a little. At least I’ll learn from it.