Dealing With Mom Guilt

All right, so I've got two moms in the studio today, and I'm going to ask my wife, Anne, this question first. And it's if you had to think of one word, just one, to describe being a mom, the word would be? Oh, I can't. I know, I know. Overwhelming? I have to put the other one with it. I thought you'd say beautiful.

Overwhelming is the first word. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Anne Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

It's interesting. There was a survey in 2014, and I'm going to ask you moms if this is true, that said one in four working moms cry alone at least once a week. I would say even moms that are staying at home are probably crying two times a week.

I think both are super hard, but yeah, I think that could be true for sure. So we've got some help today. I'm so excited. You are? Yes, I'm so excited.

Well, tell the listeners who we got. We have with us today Becky Bodwin, and she's written a book called Enjoy Every Minute. And that's not the end of the title. The best part is to come.

And other ridiculous things we say to moms. Welcome to Family Life Today. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I know. Me too. You can tell I'm a little excited.

And all you moms out there, you're welcome, because we're going to start talking about things that people have said to you, that people have made you feel great about or guilty about. And we're going to kind of tackle these issues. Yeah. And you're a mom of three? Yes. Three daughters. Yeah. How old are they?

Ten, 20, and 15. Yeah. And not only an author and a speaker, but you used to write for the Chicago Daily Herald.

I did. That's how I started writing, I would say. And that sort of led to the speaking engagements. And then this is my second book. So I've been writing and speaking primarily to moms for about 10 years. Well, what a great title. I mean, did you come up with that? Thank you.

I did. I've had this on my heart for a long time. I knew this was the title I wanted. Most people think it's hilarious. Sometimes when people say, what's the title, and I tell them, they don't really get the subtitle part. And they just stick with the, yeah, you have to enjoy every minute. So it doesn't always exactly land, but most people think it's funny. And now that our kids are out of the house, yes, I do think that.

Yeah, we do need to enjoy every minute. And people always used to tell me that, though, when I was a young mom. And what did you think when people said that to you as a young mom? As a young, overwhelmed mom, that would be the word I would pick when my kids were younger. But right now, I would say transforming because I have been and am being transformed as a mom as I raise my kids. So and that kind of encompasses, I think, the wonderful and the difficult and all of it.

But that's a good word. I just text my son and daughter-in-law last night. They have a two-year-old and they have a four-month-old. And what I said to them was, I know that you think you're shaping your child, which we all do. Yeah. But you'll be amazed of how your child and parenting will shape you.

Nothing has shaped me or changed me more than parenting. Yes, absolutely. And they are overwhelmed. Yeah.

I'm sure. I mean, they're in that stage right now where it's just crazy. So I mean, and again, I'm just a dad here, just watching two moms have a conversation. So I want to hear what you guys have to talk about. But obviously, the book is all these ridiculous sort of things that have been said.

We can walk through many of them. So even the first one, enjoy every minute because time goes so fast. What is the thought of like, really?

I have to say, the first time I was in a grocery store, I had three boys with me that were 5'3 and a newborn. And this mom came up to me and honestly, this is very well-intentioned. She's been through it.

She knows she's wise. And she said, oh, honey, you need to enjoy every minute because the days are going to fly by. And I mean, I got teary and I said, then why does every day feel like a million years? Is that what you felt? Is that what you mean by that? Enjoy every minute?

And you put, really? Yeah, it is because like I'm in the stage now, I have to stop myself from saying it because when I see moms with their little kids, especially little girls, I just want to say, oh, my girls used to be that age and enjoy it because it goes so fast. I can see that now. It's always moms who are further down the road and it's often in the grocery store is when they will tell you that. But when I was in the grocery store with my kids and moms would say that to me, I would just think, I know, I know, I'm supposed to be enjoying every minute. And I know that it's going fast or it's going to go fast, but it does not feel like it's going fast. My kids in some moments are really awful.

They're terrible. And the best thing about them is that they're momentary and you move through them. But you never hear moms of young children say this to other moms of young children ever.

Yeah, you're right. It's something that is, it's when you're looking back on it that you see that. And I agree, it's very well-intentioned. A lot of these, so there's 12 cliches or myths in the book, well-intentioned. There's a nugget of truth in most of them, but I had so much fun sort of picking them apart a little bit and using some humor and then digging deeper to kind of find what do moms really need to hear. That's really good.

Yeah. And so what else did you say in this chapter of Enjoy Every Minute? So one of the things that the Scripture Foundation kind of for this first chapter and then for really the whole book and sort of the view of motherhood that I want us to really take hold of is Psalm 84 and it verses five through seven says, blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. And I love that phrase. So I really am encouraging moms to view motherhood as a pilgrimage and it's a little, you know, we talk about it being a journey, but a pilgrimage is, it's a long trip with a spiritual significance. And I think that is a great definition for motherhood and for parenting. With that comes an awareness that it's lifelong. We don't have to figure everything out today.

We don't have to fix every problem right now. And that's good just in and of itself, because when you're in it, you feel like this is the hardest, the biggest thing you'll ever face. You feel overwhelmed by the decision making and what you're, it could be potty training, you know, but you're just in it and to realize, oh, this is just a phase. It's just part of that journey. It's part of the journey. That's a good reminder. I mean, I think one of the hardest parts of that journey, because when we go see our grandkids now, I mean, even our son that lives near us with just the two, and the oldest is just two. So a little baby.

The house is a wreck. You know, every second. What do you mean? Well, I mean, there's just toys. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. And every night it's cleaned up. It's the way it should be.

I'm protecting our daughter-in-law and son. No, I'm just saying, you know, when you just take a glance and there's something everywhere. And it's exactly the way it should be, toys everywhere, but that's what your brain feels like. It feels like everything's everywhere. You know, it's like somebody said raising kids is like having a bowling alley in your brain.

It's just, you know, it just feels like that's the overwhelmed part, right? Yeah. Then the verse continues as they pass through the Valley of Baka. What's the Valley of Baka? I talk about the Valley of Tears, the Valley of Weeping. And that's what it means.

Yeah. Because they make it a place of springs. The autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion. And this Psalm is so beautiful. It's the Psalm that talks about dwelling in the presence of God. So the idea with this is just as we pass through even the valleys of motherhood and parenting, they can become places of springs because God is with us.

So we hold the long view. And there's also then this expectation that we're going to go through hills and valleys. So I think part of what makes motherhood hard is thinking it's not supposed to be this hard. You know, and looking around and thinking everybody else seems like they're doing just fine. And what's wrong with me? Yeah.

Especially on social media. Like these women have it together. Yeah. Walk us back to your beginning of being a mom. What did it look like for you? Did you feel overwhelmed? I felt overwhelmed in the sense that I just never felt like I was ever going to be caught up again with anything. It's like there's always this feeling of just never being able to catch up.

But I remember just the expectation part of it. I wanted to be a mom. I was so happy to finally become a mom. We lost our first baby.

So by the time we had Caitlin, I was so ready and just couldn't wait. And then the disappointment I think of seeing some of the things in myself, I wasn't the mom that I imagined I would be. I never thought I would be perfect, but I certainly didn't think I would be angry. Did you ever have this thought, who am I?

Oh yeah. What have I become? I never, I don't think I ever really yelled. And then I could see myself.

I remember going to church and I was yelling to the kids in the minivan and Dave of course is the pastor and you know, he's already there. So I see myself in the review mirror yelling and I thought, what has happened to me? And then I have this thought of my kids have done this to me. And then it goes deeper and think, no, you are really messed up. And so then you feel this sense of shame or guilt even. Do you think most moms come to that point of feeling like what's happened?

Oh yeah. And I think that some of these, like even with, and you know, I should be enjoying every minute there's this internal dialogue that we all have, but some of those well-intentioned things people say or that we think turns into really negative self-talk. Like some of the things that you just said, I am really messed up.

What is wrong with me? I shouldn't be this way. I'm the pastor's wife. I shouldn't be struggling.

I'm a Christian. I shouldn't be getting angry like this, you know? And then we can talk about mom guilt too, because that is just, I knew I wanted to talk about that in the book. It's something that most moms I think would say they kind of deal with on a daily basis. I don't know what it's like for dads. Do dads hear it? I was just going to say, is mom guilt different than dad guilt?

I don't know. Explain what mom guilt is and I'll tell you if it's the same. Go ahead, Becky. First of all, I knew I wanted to hear from other moms on this, so I put it out on social media and thought, well, I'll ask moms to kind of chime in and say, what kinds of things do you feel guilty about as a mom and what does it sound like in your head? And I thought I would get a lot of comments and there'd be this really engaging online conversation. And what I found is that none of the moms wanted to talk about it publicly. They were just saying things like, well, how much time do you have or only every day of my life or, you know, but I invited them to private message me and my inbox was flooded with very raw, honest, I put a lot of them in the book.

Way to go. I messaged you, but then you put it in the book. Oh, I absolutely asked for permission and none of their names are put in there. It's really, yeah.

Let's hear what some of those sounded like. By the way, just that fact shows you that they feel so bad about it. They feel shame. They feel shame. Even though there's hundreds and thousands of other moms feeling the same thing, they really didn't want to say it publicly.

They had to go private. Because they think they're the only ones. I mean, some of those moms messaging me might've thought, I'm sure I'm the only one sending her an email. I don't know.

I'm sure. About this. So what I found is moms feel guilty over almost everything. A lot of things that are outside of their control. So young moms of young children were saying, I feel guilty that they don't sleep well. My baby's not sleeping through the night.

They don't eat well. You know, they get a little, or they get sick. I remember feeling so bad that I let my daughter get an ear infection. That's how I took it on myself that I had somehow allowed this. Now do moms feel that? Like it's your fault?

Absolutely. Your daughter got an ear infection. That's not your fault. I don't know. Like in my head now, I know that that's, I'll just say it's irrational. It's not true. But in the moment you think you have more control than what you do. So when things like that happen, it's just the sense of, it must be my fault. Then your kids get a little older and maybe they're not behaving well, or they start to struggle. Maybe they struggle socially or in school.

Then they even get a little bit older than that. And you start to see things and you just feel guilty about everything. And I even had several moms that I feel guilty that I can't provide a sibling for my only child.

Wow. That's certainly something that we're not in control over. And then I had moms who were in the empty nest season of life who still were feeling guilty about so many things as their kids left home. Oh, regrets. Then it turns into regrets. Or if they see their kids maybe taking a wrong path, they put it all on themselves.

Like, what did I do? And my friend's kids are super successful. And my kid is still living at home and it must be me.

Yes. Comparing your kids to other people's kids. So then I also saw there was a progression from what I would call guilt into shame.

Explain that. So the guilt that I would hear sounded like, you know, I yelled at my child, I shouldn't have done that. I lost my temper. I hurt my child. I need to apologize. Shame sounded like I'm a horrible mother. My kids deserve better than to have a mom like me.

They'd be better off with someone else. That's a really dangerous level of shame. So one of the things that I got from that was I think there is a difference. And I think it's important to identify, are we feeling true guilt or are we feeling shame? And so the way that I would break this down is true guilt. Some people would call it conviction or godly sorrow, you know, in scripture. And I'm going off of 2 Corinthians 7, 10 that says, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.

But worldly sorrow brings death. So I think true guilt is something we want to feel. When I do something wrong, when I lose my temper and yell at my child, I want to feel guilt. I want to feel like, and we want our kids to feel guilty when they do something wrong. We want to know that we've done something wrong. We want to repent, ask for forgiveness from God, the person who we hurt, and do the repair work that needs to be done. And that can be a conviction of God's Spirit.

Yeah. And it can be a healthy thing. And so then we automatically, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. And then that's it. We give it to God. We repent.

We turn the other way. Yeah. But the shame part is I'm a messed up parent. Exactly.

It's an identity. So the guilt is about what I did. And I think the shame is more about who I am. Yeah. Did you ever feel that? Was there a time that you felt that?

Oh, yeah. I felt like growing up in my home, anger was out of control. And someone actually said to me, you interned in the school of anger. I never had thought of it that way, but that was as much as I didn't want to become an angry mother when that started coming out. And I began to really see that underneath my anger was fear. It was oftentimes, I'm afraid I'm not in control.

I'm afraid my child is getting off track, losing their way. Which that alone is really insightful, because we've all heard anger is a second emotion. So you tracked back and now you realize, oh, my first emotion was fear.

Yeah. It's been so helpful to be able to then take my fear to God and be honest, what am I really afraid of? And so often it's something I don't even have control over. It's interesting when you talk about the second emotion and again, like Ann said, you go right back to fear.

Most of us, like I never did. I was like yelling and until I understood it was connected to something. I remember as I was studying this and learning this, cause I had some anger that was inappropriate. I mean, not hitting or, you know, just a yelling.

And so I studied it a little bit and another first emotion we skip over, especially as a parent is frustration. I remember trying to fix my dryer in the slab of our basement. You know, we didn't have a finished basement. I'm laying in this dryer. And again, people know me know why I'm doing this cause I'm not going to pay anybody to do this.

I'm going to do it the cheap way. And my son CJ comes down. What is he? Six? Oh, not even.

Five, four. He wants to help daddy reaches in and I'm like, Hey, just take this little screw head and screw this thing in. And he couldn't do it because it was, you know, laying back here and it kept falling off the thing. And at first I was so gentle. I was like, Oh, and I remember thinking this is so cool.

Dad and son. But as he kept missing the head of the screw, I'm like, CJ, just put it on CJ, CJ, CJ. And next thing I knew, I'm sort of yelling. He literally, I just feel his little body crawl out. He's headed upstairs and there I am laying in the lint. And I remember hearing his little footsteps go upstairs and I'm like, Oh my goodness.

He's going to remember dad as an angry man. I remember thinking, I've got to get a handle on where this anger is coming from. And it was everything you're talking about is just like, enjoy every minute. Oh, when it's crazy and you're, you know, it's chaos. You're frustrated.

I mean, if you're going to try and fix a dryer with a four year old, it's not going to go well. Right. You should expect frustration. And yet that's where we live as moms and dads, isn't it? Yeah.

You know, we're just, they get the anger part and we never connect it to, like you said, anger, maybe what you're doing to your kids or how they're going to turn out or frustration or even emotional hurt is another one. Yeah. But I mean, that's insightful that you were able to pull that out as a mom. I'm afraid. Yeah.

So take us back to that. Then you realized you were feeling afraid as a young mom that was displaying itself in anger. Then what happened?

How did you figure the rest out? It's just been years and years of just, I feel like I'm sort of tripping up the stairs. You know, it's not like, oh, I discovered this and then I was able to change it. For me, the grace of God is so transformative. So what that means is that even in the middle of a moment that is going very badly because I am getting angry, I'm expressing my anger in a way that's hurtful, the more sensitive I become to the work of the Holy Spirit and also other moms that I'm friends with and I know their stories and I know how they have been wounded. Sometimes that pops into my mind and kind of gives me insight.

So to be able to just in the moment or shortly after go back and own it and ask for forgiveness. And I tell the story in the book of the first time I remember getting angry with my oldest daughter, Kate. She was six months old and she'd gotten this ear infection and I didn't want to give her an antibiotic because this one person had told me that would mess up her digestive system. And then I had to give her yogurt and she doesn't like yogurt. And so I remember giving, squirting the medicine in her mouth and she spit it all out. And I lost it, not on her or with her. I walked into the kitchen, but it was an apartment all open and I grabbed the frying pan that still had our scrambled eggs in it. I threw it in the sink, I slammed the doors and then I caught her out of the corner of my eye and she was just like stunned.

She was just looking at me. And I remember thinking, oh, I totally lost it, but she's so young, she'll never remember and I'll never do it again. And that was how I lived my early years, just thinking, I think I could really pull this off and be almost perfect if I just keep trying and maybe they won't remember.

I prayed that, oh Jesus, please, please Jesus, let them forget all of this. So then fast forward, 15, 16 years now, she's a teenager. We're fighting a lot, butting heads. And I remember one day in her room and it was fear underneath. I saw something that she was looking at. It was actually a story that her teacher had asked her to read for school. And I just walked in and saw on the iPad, some words and I just flipped out, I'm like, what are you reading?

She's like, it's for school. And I'm like, well, then I'm really even more upset, and walked out of her room, I slammed the door. I like to slam doors, I can't anymore because we redid our kitchen and now we have soft closed doors. So I really try not to slam doors, but I slammed her door and this picture frame fell off the wall and it's a cherished frame of pictures of her and her sister. And I opened the door, said, I'm so sorry, it didn't break.

We hung it back up. I said, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again. And then a couple months later, we had an even bigger fight, I left her room, I slammed the door. As soon as the door left my fingers, I had that regret, I just cringed, the door slammed, I heard the picture frame fall again and my daughter yelled, you broke my frame.

And I just thought 15 years of like, I am trying, but I keep doing the same thing. That was a defining moment, really just in the sense of, I have got to really look at this, what's underneath my anger because I'm really hurting the people that I love the most. And a couple days later, she came to me and said, well, you helped me fix my frame. So we sat at the dining room table and we put some wood filler in the crack of the frame.

We put some stain over it. Go back and share the conversation that you had with your daughter about that, about your anger. Did you talk to her about it? I did. I came back, I said, I was sorry.

I said I was wrong. The problem was that I had done it a couple months ago and said I wouldn't do it again. So she was angry and she was so hurt. And there was this like, you can say you're sorry, but if you're going to keep doing it, and I think that's what can be so frustrating as a parent. It's not like we just mess up once and then are able to fix it and not do it again. I think so many of us feel like I keep just doing the same thing over and over again. So for me, the grace came when we came to the table and we sat together and we were repairing the frame and I just thought, this is what God is doing in our relationship.

That's what his grace looks like. We are not going to get it right every time and we are not even going to always be able to change completely or as quickly as we would like to. But we keep doing the work. We keep coming back to the table. We keep saying we're sorry. We keep showing up. We get help to understand what's going on. So I was doing all of that work, you know, and trying to understand.

And there has been growth. I still get angry, but I don't think that I do the same things that I did before. And the best thing I can do is when I know that I have messed up again is come back and humbly own it and say I'm sorry and ask God for forgiveness and then do the repair work and the relationship. I love that your daughter came to you. It says that she trusts you, even that she would ask you to fix the frame with her.

It shows that you have a good relationship with her. But that part, even in parenting, of going deep into the shame, I have felt that where I have turned it from I did something wrong to I am so messed up. I am so broken. And we know that there's an enemy of our soul who loves. He's called the accuser, the accuser of the brethren. Sometimes I get discouraged of how often I went there and I believed him. And I would agree like, I know I am broken, I am messed up, I am going to mess up my kids. And I think our father who's like, oh, Anne, it is the gospel. I've come to give you hope and grace because of the cross. I've set you free from the lies and you don't have to go down that same path.

Will I continue to mess up? Probably and hopefully I'm getting better because I'm seeking Jesus and kind of I'm asking him also like, Lord, what's underneath all of that? And I do love Psalm 139.

I'll never forget. I have a friend that's super confident as a young mom where I was thinking my kids would probably be better off if so-and-so was raising them. And I remember she said, no, I don't think that. I think that God put my kids under my roof because he's already equipped me. He formed me. Psalm 139, for you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. And she said, when God formed me, he knew the children that I would be raising and some are adopted, some are biological. And she said, so I'm confident everything in me, even the messed up parts, God's going to use for his glory.

And I was like, whoa, I need to have that. I need to have, Lord, you knew me before I was created and you know my weaknesses, you know my strengths, and you know that you've already given me inside what I need to raise these kids under your roof. All of us as parents know our flaws, our failings. I think it's easy for moms to pull back and think I'm ruining my kids. And yet God's grace is sufficient in our weaknesses.

We just need to keep crying out to God. David and Wilson have been talking to Becky Bodwin, the author of a book called Enjoy Every Minute and Other Ridiculous Things We Say to Moms. We are making that book available this week to Family Life Today listeners, those of you who can help support this ministry with a donation. Your support of Family Life Today makes this kind of practical encouragement available day in and day out for moms and dads, husbands and wives, as we seek to effectively develop godly marriages and families.

Your investment in family life is really an investment in the next generation of families who are coming to us for help and hope for their marriage and family. So when you make a donation today, we'd love to send you a copy of Becky Bodwin's book Enjoy Every Minute and Other Ridiculous Things We Say to Moms. You can donate online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call to donate 1-800-FL-TODAY is the number.

Again, the website to donate is familylifetoday.com, or call 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And thanks in advance for your support of this ministry. Now, have you ever had somebody say to you, listen, God is not going to give you more than you can handle, and you think, I can't handle this.

What I'm going through, I can't handle it. Well, tomorrow, Dave and Ann Wilson will continue their conversation with Becky Bodwin, and they'll talk about how we should think rightly about the challenges that come our way, and whether it's more than we can handle or not. Hope you can tune in for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I am Bob Lapeen. We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.