Does a mother's guilt ever go away?

Does a mother’s guilt ever go away? Does a mother ever feel that she can detach from her children? A woman from her family?

I have said this many times before but it always comes back to me when I am ridden with guilt as I am this week, my mother-in-law always says she does not envy this generation because we have far too many choices. That life was much simpler for her generation because they did not have a lot of choices. They did what they had to do. What was expected of them and did not question or doubt. They just did.

Whereas my generation is the first to have a myriad of choices particularly for us women. Women suffered before me to give me the right to vote. Women marched and demanded equal treatment in the workplace, opening doors for the likes of me to hold senior positions in companies. Women fought against the stereotypical image of the woman’s place being at the kitchen sink barefoot and pregnant allowing women to have the ability to lean in as Sheryl Sandberg likes to say.

Yet somewhere along the line, I feel like we missed something or at least I missed something. Sure it is glamorous to travel to many different places. To meet many interesting people. To push myself to the limit in terms of my internal fears. To put myself in situations where I know no one and have to establish who I am. And I do all these things yet at the same time sometimes I feel like something is missing.

I am travelling for business again this week so I missed my daughter’s sports yesterday. All day long I did the things I was meant to do here but my heart was with my daughter. Envisioning her running her little heart out looking for her mommy in the crowd only for her mommy not to be there. Me envying all those mothers who were there for their children. Cheering them on. With me cynically thinking but we call me being away from my children progress because we are so successful as women that we miss our children’s sports. Miss seeing them doing the best they can.

And then I started piling more quilt on myself, sinking myself deeper into the pity game when I thought about how my son will be leaving on Friday to do an expedition and I will miss helping him pack his stuff. Miss making sure he has everything with him. Miss kissing him and wishing him well face to face. Miss his sarcastic responses to me that I have grown to expect and because I am far away from him right now realise how much I will miss.

All in the name of progress, equality and success. But what is progress? What is equality? What is success? Did the women who knew their place, who were there for their families have it better than we do today? Than I do today? Or would those women be looking at my lifestyle and envying me because I do have a seat at the table, because I do get to travel, because I do get to have choices?

Are we ever satisfied with where we are or are we always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. Right now I am torn because I am a mother first but I am missing milestones in my children’s lives that I did not expect I would because I traded that aspect of myself to be this career woman too.

Believe me I am grateful for all that I have but I am also torn about the guilt that I feel when I miss the milestones in my children’s lives. And I also know it is through choice that I am where I am instead of where I would have liked to have been with my children this week. Leading me back to my mother-in-law’s statement and questioning whether she is right, is it much harder when we have choices than it is when we don’t?

Not sure but I do know the guilt is eating away at me this week because I am far from my children and their milestones but grateful at the same time that I have a husband that is there with them. At least they are not totally alone. Still it does not ease my guilt. Does not erase my feelings of being torn.

Taking me back to where I started from is a mother ever free of guilt? Ever free of trying to be all things to all people at her expense? Not sure but I do feel better for putting my feelings out there and hoping that others will understand my quandary as well and maybe by expressing how I feel I can help another woman feeling the same to know she is not alone.

That we are human beings try to live the best lives we can and doing the best we can with the choices we make every single day. That I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister and a friend doing the best I can and sometimes that means I will be ridden with guilt and that's okay too as long as I don't let it consume me and allow that to become the story of my life. 

I'm not even sure how to end this blog today because I am not sure what the answer is so I will end without ending today. Accepting that sometimes there are more questions than answers and sometimes that's okay too. Signed a woman searching for balance amongst a myriad of choices.