I vivdly remember ,that I was just out of labour room when my Mom showed me the freshest baby I had ever seen (I mean newest arrival in the world) and I felt no bond towards the baby and lo!!!there was this onrush of guilt which since then I have felt umpteen times.How could I not feel the affection (mamta -to be more apt), Iam not being a good mother *guilt guilt guilt*.
The baby looked red, his skin flaky , head elliptical and again the familiar feeling *guilt guilt guilt* , for he does not look as cute as a Johnson and Johnson baby they show in advertisement , I should not have refused to eat custard apple seeds powder with honey which my Mom had insisted upon and claimed that it would be good for his skin and hair .*guilt guilt guilt*.
Whenever he had a colick pain and he cried hard , I was pleading guilty to myself .Either I ate something wrong or the baby was hungry and I did not know or I had overfed him . Again *guilt guilt guilt*
Since then I am actually riding on a guilt trip.Now I am a mother of two so naturally guilt has doubled in its magnitude.
I feel guilty when I am taking care of younger one's needs because I am neglecting the elder one ,
similarly when I help the elder one with his HW automatically I am neglecting the younger one .
when Kids ask for maggi and I refuse them and give them greens instead , I feel guilty , but when I am busy and have no time to cook and I give them maggi , its the same feeling *---*.
Sometimes I pressurise them to study hard and I feel guilty being pushy and sometimes I just let it go and I feel more guilty being careless.
I have taken guilt to a level of fine art . When I was a working mom , I felt immensely guilty for not giving kids enough time , I always thought Quality time came from Quantity time so *---* . then I left my job and I still felt guilty , may be guiltier if possible, because now I had so much of time at hand that I gave a damn about the quality time.
I asked my mother , if she ever felt the same way and her reply was a revealetion to me . She said "Now that you ask me about the guilt ,I feel terribly guilty that you have inherited this guilt gene from me ".
I wanted to ask my mother in law too but could not muster the courage because Iam afraid she would be feeling guilty of atleast one thing i. e. to allow her son to marry me.
every mom wants to be the best mom. so, don't feel gulty. now you know that it is in the genes, work on it and do away the guilt. :-)
ReplyDeleteI guess everybody goes through this.
I liked the way you ended the post! I laughed out on reading your last sentence! :P
ReplyDeleteThe secret is to tell yourself that you, an imperfect human at best, are doing the best you can! Does not take away ALL guilt, but it helps. Perhaps you can read this:
http://shailsnest.com/wp/challenge/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-mother/
Not that it will help you because it is what I feel about being a mother. But it may just give you a different look at things! ;)