On my most recent podcast episode, I talked about neglecting the housework so that I can have time to attend to my passions, creativity and deeper soul needs. I feel very strongly about that. But as much as I sometimes want to neglect the housework, guilt can still be such a bitch. I talk and write about neglecting the housework in favor of self-care but I still suffer from all sorts of motherhood guilt. Right now, as I am writing this, and my kids are playing in another room, I feel guilty. It’s like there’s a nagging whisper in my head. You should be playing with the kids. You should be giving them more attention. WHAT THE HELL? We are in the middle of a pandemic. I have been giving them tons and tons of attention. I am teaching Julian to ride a two-wheel bike. I do art projects with Pippa. I read to them as much as they want. I even made a worm farm with them when it was raining every day. I MADE A FREAKING WORM FARM AND YET I STILL FEEL LIKE I AM NOT DOING ENOUGH??? What the freaking hell?! I wrote a long blog post about motherhood guilt back in May. And then I backed off from that area of inquiry. That’s okay. I am figuring this motherhood guilt think out my way. To some extent, my motherhood guilt seems to arise from an internalized belief that a mother must sacrifice everything for her children. If I am being anything less than a martyr, I am failing at motherhood. But I think my guilt goes deeper than that. In the second grade, the words on the chalkboard got fuzzy. I asked my friends, and they could all see the board clearly. I realized I needed glasses. But did I tell my parents? No! I felt guilty, convinced that I had done something wrong and Jesus was punishing me. (Catholic school graduate writing here…) I hid my eyesight woes from my parents for two years before finally “confessing” the problem to my mom, who immediately assured me that I had done nothing wrong. My guilt had arisen from my faulty belief that failing eyesight was a punishment from the divine. When I had postpartum depression in 2013, guilt was one of my strongest symptoms. And holy shit, I suffered from some intense guilt during those early months of motherhood. I felt guilty if I took a shower and Pippa woke up and cried. I felt guilty if I put her down to make myself some lunch. If she so much as whimpered, I was stabbed with intense guilt. But by labeling that guilt as a symptom of postpartum depression, I overlooked the possibility that the guilt I was experiencing in 2013 was just an exaggerated version of something I have been experiencing my entire life. I am not blaming myself here! Countless books and doctors and experts have declared guilt to be a symptom of postpartum depression, just as puking is a symptom of the flu. So just as the puking only happens while you have the flu, the guilt must only happen when you have PPD. Right? WRONG. Because I felt guilty as a little girl in the second grade for not being able to read the words on the chalkboard. Because I feel guilty now, as a woman of forty-one, for writing a blog post while my kids are busy playing. This next bit is difficult to write, but I am going to write it anyway: I think I feel guilty because I do not feel like I am worthy of feeling good about myself. I think my propensity toward guilt stems from a belief that I am inferior and unworthy of love. That I must prove my worth, again and again, by sacrificing myself to others because everyone else is more worthy than me. Holy shit, that was difficult to write, but it also felt damn cathartic. I am a woman, and for most of human history, women have been subservient to men. In Biblical times, women were wives, servants and whores. We were valued for making babies and taking care of the men in our lives. OF COURSE I HAVE INTERNALIZED A BELIEF THAT I AM INFERIOR AND UNWORTHY. Women in the United States have only had the vote for one hundred years! I see my guilt and I see its absurdity. I see that it arises from toxic beliefs about my sense of worth in the world. Now I need to revise those beliefs so that I truly, deeply and profoundly believe in my value as a person. I need to take a really critical look at the world around me and call bullshit when I see bullshit. Starting with motherhood. The idea that a good mom must sacrifice everything for her children? Total and utter bullshit.