Mum Guilt is a Thing

Written by Hayley Messenger for her blog, Life with Lola x

You can follow her on Instagram here!

It can strike anywhere, any time and for pretty much any reason…yup, mum guilt.

I’d heard people bouncing those two words around before I had Lola but I didn’t pay much attention and most definitely didn’t understand how often or easily mum guilt can set in.

Motherhood includes a wide range of emotions and you can go through most of them in a day, but the one that I struggle with the most is guilt.

We’re a pretty happy family and we laugh a lot, but then out of nowhere ~ BOOM….here comes the guilt.

These are a few of the ‘mum guilts’ I’ve had (some a lot more regular than others):

• I didn’t play with Lola enough

• The washing hasn’t been done, there’s dishes on the side and the house is a tip, because I was playing with Lola

• I let her eat sweets and chocolate

• Sometimes I hide in the kitchen and eat HER sweets and chocolate in secret

• I let her watch too much tv

• I didn’t let her watch frozen for the millionth time that day

• She’s cold. I didn’t put enough layers on her ❄

• She’s too hot. I put too many layers on her

• I go to work and have to leave her crying because she doesn’t want me to go

• Sometimes I count down the hours until bedtime ~ And then miss her the instant she’s asleep

• Her clothes are too big

• Her clothes are too small

• Instead of buying myself some new leggings, I should have spent that £16 on that doll she LOVES in Tesco

• Sometimes I cant remember the last time she had a bath….

I could go on and on, but pretty much every situation ends in feeling guilt somewhere along the line. Sometimes I even feel guilty about having “mum guilt”.

But from now on I’m going to embrace it ~ because the moment I stop feeling guilty means I don’t care. And I really REALLY hope that never happens.

Whenever I get a pang of guilt creeping in, I’m going to try my hardest to remember it’s only because I love her and not because I’m mean (except for when I’m hiding in the kitchen shovelling her Cadbury buttons in my mouth, that’s pretty mean ).