Mom Guilt: Summer Edition
Howdy howdy, folks! I missed you last week because I couldn’t get the kids out of the pool, and to be fair, they didn’t do a good job getting me out either (shout out to Coleman for making a solid above ground pool. I did not expect that).
We’ve had a pool for 8 days, and my productivity has dramatically decreased. I spent an hour and a half revising my “Why we need Political Epidemiology” article (hey, I’m on the job market in the fall), and did a little more research before my next novel revision (any literary agents want a peek at a YA set during the Nuremberg Trials where teens are trying to navigate the world when they realize the adults aren’t doing a great job driving this bus?).
We’ve spent at least 15 hours in the pool (none yet today), we watched movies, we played video games, and we did some reading/craft time. Yet through it all was a nagging guilt about the work undone. Sure, I’ve got 2 syllabi 90% and one 70% (okay 35%), and I’m not getting paid over the summer….but shouldn’t I be working?
Mom Guilt is everywhere
Mom guilt is so ubiquitous you can find thousands of websites telling you how to overcome it (none of them work). This is because everything you do as a mom is wrong. Too nice? You’re going to raise kids who can’t handle conflict. Too strict? You’re going to send them to therapy. Too involved? Helicopter/snowplow mom. Too uninvolved? Okay, Boomer. Work outside of the home/family? Way to leave the raising of your children to other people, loser. Stay at home mom? It must be so nice to lounge around all day, you lazy gold digger!
This goes from pregnancy and birth. C-section? Wrong. Vaginal birth? Wrong. Mediated birth? Weak. Unmediated birth? Trying to be a hero. Breastfeeding? Judgmental milk-nazi. Formula feeding? You obviously hate your kid and want them to turn into mutant freaks with no immune system.
And as far as I can tell from my friends, mom guilt/shaming appears to continue forever. So much fun.
Capitalism and Productivity
Speaking as a mom who had a c-section and then a home birth, who breast fed and then bottle fed, who has stayed at home and gone to work, I can say two things for sure: it’s all hard (and can all be great), and almost no one is as hard on you as you are on yourself.
I’m a smart lady who, by and large, stopped caring what (most) people think about my parenting a while ago. So, why do I still feel guilty for having fun?
Part of it is probably my C-PTSD, I spend a lot of good time wondering where the other shoe will drop.
But this time, it’s also just the typical American capitalist-productivity obsession.
The idea that we “live to work” versus other places where they “work to live” is not unfounded. Americans work hundreds of hours a year more than most Europeans. We have a culture that values looking busy and being willing to sacrifice everything for your job. Ask an American “what do you do?” and the answer will be job-related. Work-aphelia is so ingrained in our culture that we hate welfare, social security, unemployment, or anyone who isn’t rich and games the system (rich people get to game the system because they’re better than us).
All that hard work isn’t paying off, by the way. By 2011, "The ratio of corporate profits to wages [was] higher than at any time since just before the Great Depression." We’re inundated with myths about why we can’t raise minimum wage, but costs still go up. Productivity has grown 4.4 times more than wages. Americans of all ages are in precarious financial situations regarding retirement, though my age group (40s) and the surrounding two decades—30s and 50s—are in particularly tough spots.
Costs of Parenthood: Mom Guilt on hyper-drive
Being a parent makes this so much nerve wracking because your productivity is supposed to secure your kid(s)’s future.
You’ve heard of the middle class “dream hoarders”? This book blames the middle class (despite the fact that it is increasingly dwindling and he really should have said the lower-upper class) for hoarding summer camps programs and any other advantages for children. Of course, re mom guilt, if we don’t give our children those opportunities they’ll never get into the fewer college seats available or get those jobs that will give them financial security (fortunately, my children want to be some combination of the following: astrophysicist, astro-archaeologist, anthropologist, farmer, waitress, chocolatier, “fashion girl in Brooklyn,” writer, or aerospace engineer….so odds are they’re just going to be broke. I wanted to be Bugs Bunny or the President, so I’m not one to talk).
The anxiety of raising children in a world that is increasingly on fire economically, environmentally (literally), politically, and all other ways plays on the mom guilt, and unregulated/dysregulated capitalism promises that if we work hard enough we can save our children from it. (If we worried about saving ALL children rather than viewing a stable future as a competition, we’d probably all be better off. But that’s for another time.)
But these dreams are costly. The National Women’s Law Center has some great infographics on the wage gap for moms. Women earn half as much after having children (which has to be stressful for dads and other co-parents who keep the financial ship afloat. (Sorry, babe!)).
Also, remember the housing crisis we’re in? It turns out, despite the bonkers cost of housing in the US, many Americans are spending more on childcare than housing! How can we even afford to work? I don’t know, but if we don’t we’re dooming our kids (if we do, we’re dooming our kids, but different).
Conclusion
How do I break through the guilt? First, I get books through inter-library loan so I have to pick them up. Then, having removed myself from pool temptation, I can do a few hours of work in the library (hi!). But I can afford to do that because my in-laws live near my house and my husband works from home a few days a week.
I don’t know how other parents deal with it. Summer camps and child care cost anywhere from $87 a day, to $1000-3000 per child. Families are spending around 20% of their income on summer childcare. Two places near us that were only 9-3 were $460+ a week. So, I’ll just remind myself that I’m saving thousands of dollars by only sending my oldest to two weeks of day camp (she loves karate, and $270 a week is in-budget). Hang tough out there parents, and have some solidarity. Because the only real way to stop the mom guilt is to stop the mom-shaming, and if we want to stop economic inequality, we need to reorient our thinking on work and worth.
Until next week, I’ll be in the pool with the kids (although, if you want to send me a message on Monday to remind me to research literary agents or edit my article, I’d appreciate it).
