How to Prioritize YOU: How to Stop Feeling Guilty About Self-Care as a Mom + FREE Self-Care Time Hacker

In my previous post, I told you why self-care isn’t optional even when you have a family.

But even though you now know about the benefits of making time for yourself when you have kids, a partner, or aging parents to take care of, you might still struggle to actually make it happen.

Why?

Time might be one obstacle. After all, when you’re caring for kids or other family members, it’s harder to find time for yourself.

But when you have other people to take care of, there’s another barrier to self-care that can be an even tougher beast to tackle: GUILT.

Anyone in a caregiving role can feel guilty about taking time for themselves and tending to their own needs. But women are especially likely to struggle with guilt around self-care. After all, as women, we’re constantly surrounded by messages that tell us that our role on Earth is to take care of other people, even if this comes at the expense of meeting our own basic needs.

As I told you last week, though, self-care is even MORE important to prioritize when you have other people to take care of.

That’s why in this post, I’m doing a deep dive on how to FINALLY stop feeling guilty about self-care as a mom (or another type of caregiver).  

Let’s get to it!

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What Is Mom Guilt?

Before we dive into talking about how to reduce mom guilt about self-care, let’s back up and clarify what mom guilt actually is.

Mom guilt is the worry or regret you feel when you think you’ve been an inferior mom to your kids. For example, you might experience mom guilt when you give your kids fast food for dinner one night, let them have screen time, yell at them for drawing on the walls, or don’t volunteer to be a parent chaperone for their school field trip.

Sometimes mom guilt can be helpful if it’s a signal that you’ve done something wrong and could benefit from re-evaluating your behavior. For example, if you snapped at your toddler for being really clingy one afternoon, guilt might cue you to reflect on the situation and how to move forward from it. Specifically, it might clue you in to the fact that your toddler’s behavior was age-appropriate, so snapping at them for it probably wasn’t the best way to handle the situation. This can ultimately help you realize that you might want to talk to your kid about what happened and apologize for responding the way you did.

However, most of the time that moms experience mom guilt, they haven’t actually done anything wrong. Instead, they feel guilty about feeding store-bought baby food instead of pureeing sweet potatoes from a farmer’s market themselves. Or they feel bad that they let their kid watch TV for 30 minutes while they worked instead of spending all day playing with them. In these situations, the guilt moms experience is based on an irrational belief that they haven’t done or aren’t doing enough for their kids. It’s this kind of guilt that stops moms from making time for themselves when they want and need to.   

Of course, all types of parents and caregivers can experience guilt related to their caregiving role. But women are especially likely to feel it because society generally expects more from women when it comes to caregiving.

Where Does Mom Guilt Come from?

If mom guilt usually isn’t helpful or adaptive, why does it exist and where does it come from?

Mom guilt stems from the unrealistic ideas and expectations in society about what moms are supposed to be like. It comes from the images of “the perfect mom” in movies, TV shows, and social media posts—the ones who bake fresh bread every week, make their kids’ Halloween costumes, take their kids on daily nature walks, and organize school fundraisers.

Because you’re constantly bombarded with these images, you probably think that these images represent what a mom is supposed to be like. So even if you love your kids and do the very best you can for them, you might think that you’re not doing enough for your kids if you’re buying their Halloween costumes from a store or too busy to take them out for a walk every day.

Like most moms, you probably believe that your kids deserve the very best. So if you think you’re not doing enough for your kids, you probably feel guilty. That’s where mom guilt comes from.

Guilt About Spending Time Away

As I’ve mentioned, you can experience mom guilt for lots of different reasons. But one common type of mom guilt is feeling guilty about spending time away from your kids—whether it’s because you’re at work, out running errands, or taking time out for self-care.  

Because of what you were explicitly and implicitly taught about motherhood over the course of your life, you might believe that good moms spend as much time with their kids as possible. So you might feel guilty about doing anything that takes you away from your kids—even if it’s for a perfectly reasonable and responsible reason. You might also feel guilty about enjoying what you do when you’re away from your kids or enjoying having a break from them.

This kind of mom guilt stems from beliefs like the following:

• “When I’m away from my kids, I’m taking something away from them.”
• “If I go to a yoga class, I’m not giving my kids the time and attention they deserve.”
• “I should want to be with my kids all day long.”

You may not be able to eliminate mom guilt entirely. But you absolutely CAN tame it so that you’re able to take time for yourself on a regular basis and not be completely consumed by guilt when you do it.

Here are 5 ways to stop feeling so guilty about self-care as a mom:

1. Remind Yourself About the Benefits of Self-Care

You might feel guilty about making time for self-care because you think that by setting aside time for yourself, you’re taking something away from your kids. But as I mentioned in my post on why self-care isn’t optional, taking care of yourself is good for you and your kids.

When you make time to take care of yourself, you’re able to be more present and available for your kids when you are with them. Your kids are much better off with a mom who takes an hour to recharge and is then energized, attentive, and enthusiastic while playing with them for 2 hours than with a mom who’s with her kids for 3 hours but is too resentful and burned out the whole time to be much fun.

So the next time you feel guilty about heading off to the gym or taking a bath while your partner watches the kids, remind yourself that making time for you benefits your kids too. 

2. Keep Your Guilt in Perspective

I mentioned earlier that most mom guilt surfaces in response to something a mom has done that isn’t actually wrong. So when you’re feeling guilty about making time for self-care, remember that the guilt doesn’t mean that you’re actually doing something wrong. Feeling bad doesn’t mean that you are a bad mom or that you’ve done something bad by going for a walk or planning a night out with friends.

On a similar note, don’t beat yourself up about feeling what you feel when you’re away from your kids. It’s okay to miss them, and it’s okay to wish that you could be with them and get a break from them at the same time. Remember that you feel guilty because you care about your kids and want the best for them. Give yourself space to feel what you feel, but avoid seeing it as a signal that you’ve done something wrong or aren’t enough of a mom to your kids.

3. Challenge Your Negative Thoughts

I’ve noted above that mom guilt often stems from false negative beliefs, such as “I’m not a good mom if I take time away from my kids” or “My kids will suffer if I’m not with them every waking second of the day.”

That’s why one especially powerful way to reduce mom guilt about self-care is to challenge the negative beliefs that underlie this guilt. You can do this by choosing a belief and asking yourself questions like these:

• Is this belief really true?
• What evidence do I have to support this belief?
• Is this belief helpful? Is it serving me right now?
• Is there an alternative belief that is better supported by evidence?

For example, let’s say that you want to challenge the belief “My kids will suffer if I’m not with them every waking second of the day.” When you ask yourself the questions above about this belief, you might realize that there’s no evidence that your kids will suffer if they play with grandma for the evening while you meet a friend for dinner. You might also recognize that this belief isn’t serving you well because it’s making you think twice about getting away for an evening to relax and recharge (which will benefit you and your kids). And you might also be able to consider that your kids might actually have too much fun with grandma to even notice that you’re gone!

When you challenge the beliefs that underlie mom guilt, you’re able to recognize that the worries or anticipated regrets that you have about taking time for yourself usually aren’t rooted in facts.

4. Avoid Comparisons

If you’re a mom, you probably know a lot of other people who are moms too. So when you go on social media, you might be bombarded with posts about moms having “perfect” moments with their kids. I’m talking about the posts that show moms making handmade decorations for a birthday party, creating their own sensory toys, or whipping up one healthy meal from scratch after another.

You might know in the back of your mind that social media posts don’t necessarily represent reality. But you might nevertheless worry that you’re not doing enough for your kids if you’re making time for self-care before you’ve cooked a full Sunday dinner and sewed an outfit for your teen to wear to their 80s-themed school dance.

That’s why it might help to limit your time on social media or re-evaluate who you follow. If there are people who routinely make you feel guilty about taking time out for yourself as a mom, they might be worth unfollowing or muting.

5. Recognize Your Accomplishments

When you’re a mom, it’s easy to focus on everything you’re not doing for your kids instead of on all of the things you are doing. So the next time that you’re feeling guilty about going for a hike on your own or scrapping plans for a homemade breakfast so you can sleep in, think about all of the time that you do spend on your kids.

When you reflect on what you do for and with your kids, don’t think just about the big things—like the recent trip to the zoo or the birthday party you just threw. Think about all of the little things too. I’m talking about the diapers you change, the stories you read before bed, the drives to and from basketball practice, and the hugs you give at the end of a tough day.

Thinking of the full picture of how you spend your time as a mom will help you view the time you spend on self-care in a balanced way. Yes, you may spend 20 minutes here reading a book and 45 minutes there on doing an online workout. But you’re still spending a huge chunk of time caring for and loving your kids.

Don’t Let Mom Guilt Get in The Way

You might not be able to kick mom guilt to the curb entirely. But by using the 5 strategies I’ve shared above, you can keep it in check. This way, mom guilt won’t overwhelm you or hold you back from giving yourself the time you need (and actually enjoying it!).

Of course, even when you become a pro at taming mom guilt, it can still be a challenge to integrate self-care into your everyday life on a consistent basis.

To help you create “me time” for yourself on a regular basis, I’ve developed a FREE worksheet called the Self-Care Time Hacker.

It’ll help you carve out time for YOU every day so you can feel less overwhelmed and be a more present mom for your kids.

And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and master classes.

See you again soon!

Vera

P.S. Think it’s selfish to spend time on yourself when you could be with your kids instead? Watch the video I made on why it’s NOT selfish to prioritize your needs.

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