stuff to feel guilty about

I’ve discovered that guilt and procrastination are closely intertwined, which only makes sense given the general uselessness that characterizes guilt as an emotion. My guilt paralysis has rendered me unable to return phone calls/emails, fill out job applications, clean increasingly scummy bathtubs, and of course, update blogs. Oops.

I got to thinking of guilt some time ago as I was I guiltily ignoring the toddler and surfing the internet when I came across Margaret Wente’s recent column, Motherhood: The New Oppression. According to Margie, “if we want to raise the birth rate, perhaps we need to lower the bar”. (She says lots of other smart things too, but I’ll focus on that quote for the sake of simplicity and the way it lends itself so neatly to my discussion here.)

Now, I’ve written before in defense of overparenting, which frankly, has gotten a bit of a bad rap. If abstaining from tequila when I’m pregnant, discouraging knife play, and thinking piano lessons are a nice idea make me a helicopter parent, well ex-cuuuuuuuze me. I don’t think that we should romanticize the days of  children babysitting themselves at seven years of age and seat-belt optional road trips. But we’ve taken it further than just embracing butting out and time-outs. We’ve set the standard of motherhood so high that reaching its summit has become virtually impossible. One of the greatest downsides of our generation’s “enlightened” parenting is that knowing too much simply means that we can’t do everything that we know we’re supposed to do.

Enter the guilt.

I really don’t think that my mother endured the kind of mommy guilt to which I am subjected. Sure, it’s partly a personality thing, but it’s also a generational thing. She didn’t feel guilty about buying plastic sippy cups or kiboshing breastfeeding as soon as we cut our first teeth primarily because she wasn’t inundated with information compelling her not to.

I, on the other hand, will buy the plastic sippy cups (we’re on a budget and they’re a fraction of the cost of the stainless steel ones) but I am left to suffer the images of my son sprouting man boobs or cancerous growths. It’s unfair really. She never had to worry about my brothers’ man boobs.

But getting back to guilt. It sucks. And sometimes I feel like it runs my life. Thus far this week, here are a few samples of what’s induced it:

1. The occasional realization that I never do crafts with my child. Everyone else seems to do crafts. I just see glitter and glue and paint-crusted hair and think oh f-ck it. Then I feel guilty. But I still don’t do crafts.
2. The incredibly effective babysitting ability of Elmo. Cringe levels of guilt!
3. Callum went down for a nap with a bottle in his mouth. I sneak in every couple of minutes and try to extract it but then he wakes up and the nap is kaput. Also both my mother and mother-in-law worked in the dental field. On top of feeling guilty I might be in big trouble.
4. Ordering takeout on multiple occasions this week when I am a perfectly adept cook and we are trying to save money. Why takeout this week, you ask? Because I have been spending nap time watching Lost online (bonus guilt!). I am halfway through season six, okay? No more pad thai and fish and chips once I’m done! For real!
5. I have not updated this blog in weeks/I am updating this blog instead of spending time with my family or doing more sophisticated things.

You see the lose-lose situation this guilt thing causes?

p.s.

When I started writing this post I was in Victoria, but as I edit I’m back in Nova Scotia for a visit, and my dear child is being adored by his extended family while I enjoy my butter with a side of vegetables and my mother keeps a steady supply of Swedish crime novels at my disposal.

See? She is the best mom ever. And she never did crafts. And I bet that if she had the internet in 1979, she totally would have surfed it too.

Thank you vacation for making me feel decidedly less guilty.

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