Mom Guilt is Real But These Are the Things I Never Feel Guilty About

If mom guilt was personified in the Inside Out universe, I envision she’d be the most irritating, jaw-grinding, judgemental character of all time. This lady loves to take the controls when you’re mentally drained and whisper the most out-of-pocket nonsense into your subconscious. She’s a true “Karen” who examines your every parenting decision under a microscope and deems them all disappointingly inadequate. We’ve all fallen victim to her antics because, unfortunately, her voice sounds eerily similar to ours.

Mom guilt has held me in her grips more times than I can count since the day I brought my first baby home. She’s a hard one to shake but not impossible. The older my kids get, the more I can push aside that infuriating voice and focus on what’s true. Most of the things I used to feel guilty about—from self-care habits to routines to boundaries—are actually beneficial to myself, my kids, and my family’s overall well-being. Although eliminating mom guilt in every aspect of life is likely an impossible feat, these are the five things that I refuse to feel guilty about.

Letting myself and my kids indulge in “special treats”

I consider myself a senior card-carrying member of the “Treat Yourself” coalition. There’s nothing that breathes more life into me than spending $7.55 on my favorite local iced coffee or opening a bag of spicy chips at the end of a long day. “Treat Yourself” is a doctrine I’ve subscribed to long before parenthood, and now with the added responsibilities of raising two small humans, I can’t muster an ounce of guilt for any of the special treats I allow myself. Most can agree that chocolate is the ultimate pick-me-up after a day full of migraine-inducing meltdowns.

My love of special treats also makes me more empathetic to my kids when they ask me for their own. However, we all know how much of a slippery slope that can be with toddlers. Thankfully, I’ve completely eliminated the mom guilt of allowing them sweets by offering them Unreal Snacks instead of the usual artificial junk. They have a full lineup of sweets from chocolate nougat bars, peanut and almond butter cups, dark chocolate pretzels, and tons more chocolatey-gooey-goodness. But they’re all made with simple, real ingredients that are way better for the kids. Plus, they’re made with lower amounts of sugar so we avoid that crash. The kids love the goodies from Unreal Snacks so much that we also pop a couple into their school lunches for a little razzle-dazzle.

It’s especially sweet to share a guilt-free treat with my littles and create more bonding moments. Truthfully, they’re so good that even my husband and I reach for extra bites when the kids aren’t looking. I’ve been grabbing the Dark Chocolate Coconut Bar more than any other treat after they go to bed, too. Even though I always feel deserving of a special treat, I definitely enjoy Unreal Snacks far more knowing they’re made with high-quality ingredients, always.

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Following a consistent sleep schedule for my kids

Both of my kids have a bedtime of about 6:45 to 7:15 p.m. since they were both infants, and it’s one of the best parenting decisions we’ve ever made. It started out of sheer necessity because my oldest refused to sleep more than two to three-hour stretches at night for the first eight months of his life. The sleep deprivation drove me to near insanity, so I hired a pediatric sleep consultant to help us establish a new routine and better bedtime habits. We continued using her advice after our second kiddo, and now at 2 and 4, they lay down for naps and bedtime at the same time every day.

Plenty of family members and other parents scratch their heads when I share the kids’ sleep schedule. “So, do you guys never go out after 7 p.m.?” “Wouldn’t it be better to teach them to sleep wherever and whenever?” Many people can’t fathom why we structure our lives so strictly around them, but truthfully, it’s for us just as much as the kids. We’d rather have a predictable schedule where we know we’ll get breaks at the same time every day. The baby and toddler stage is exhausting, so those breaks feel like necessary lifelines in a sea of neverending requests and tantrums. However, this stage is also very, very fleeting. Nap and bedtime schedules won’t dictate our lives forever. We gotta do whatever we can to stay sane in the meantime.

Scheduling time away from my kids (and not missing them)

Another positive that comes from putting my kids to bed early is the subsequent ability to do whatever I want after they go to bed. Letting me be myself without my kids is an absolute must for my mental health. So, I regularly schedule date nights with my husband, girls’ nights with friends, and solo dates with my Kindle after they go to bed. I also periodically take time off from work while they are at school to have a “me day.” Being without them helps me remember that I was a person before I became a mom, and I’m still a person now.

It took me a couple of years to let myself exist outside of my identity as a mother without feeling major mom guilt. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the fact that I was away from my kids that made me guilty, but the fact that I didn’t miss them while I was gone. I’d be having a grand old time not thinking about them at all—until it hit me. I hadn’t thought about them at all. What kind of mom doesn’t think about their kids when they’re not with them?! Well, a normal mom. They were safe, so it’s OK that I wasn’t incessantly worrying about them. It took a lot of self-reassurance that I was still a good and loving mother regardless. I understand now that to continue being a good mother to my kids, I have to be good to myself first.

“Being without them helps me remember that I was a person before I became a mom, and I’m still a person now.”

Setting up boundaries and sticking to them

There’s so much you don’t know about parenthood before coming into this phase of life, and the importance of clear boundaries was a big one for me. In my experience, having kids pushes you to consider situations you never had to in the past. For instance, with our family, we had to decide the appropriate time to allow visitors after birth, where we should spend holidays, and whether we wanted to allow sleepovers at another family member’s house. Then there are boundaries we created with our kids, like deciding the appropriate amount of daily screen time, whether we want to bedshare or not, and when they’ve reached their snack limit. And lastly, boundaries we’ve set for ourselves as working parents, like having a consistent log-off time and a period of no screens before the kids’ bedtime.

Anytime I’ve established boundaries with family, my kids, or myself, there’s always pushback (yes, even I push against my own rules half the time). But I listen to my gut when I come up with a boundary, and a mother’s intuition is a powerful force. This makes them easier to enforce when necessary. My husband and I also make these decisions as a team, and we always back each other up. Ultimately, we created our family rules for the sole purpose of keeping our children healthy and safe, and if someone doesn’t want to respect them, then they’re not someone we want in their lives.

Having a messy and cluttered home

This may be an unpopular take, but I do not care if my home is messy and unorganized. Perhaps my ADHD doesn’t allow me to see the full scope of the chaos around me (my mind lives in perpetual chaos, what’s new). But even so, I am not the mom who frantically cleans every surface of her home before guests arrive. Not to shame the moms who are—I genuinely commend your thoughtfulness as hosts. But my brain just doesn’t work that way, and I’m OK with that. If someone is coming to my house, they are also coming to my kids’ house. The kids who live here. Every day. If they don’t like witnessing the (totally normal) aftermath of my children’s existence, they can leave.

We follow a regular cleaning schedule so our house doesn’t get actually “dirty,” but the clutter of toys, school papers, and other miscellaneous items always finds its way back to our counters and floors. I’m also not shy about accepting help—if my mom offers to do the dishes or fold the kids’ laundry, my immediate response is, “Yes! Please!” I don’t have the mental bandwidth to tidy every surface of my home with everything else I worry about daily. My list of priorities starts with “keep the tiny people alive” and ends with “survive long enough to read a book before falling asleep.” Anything else that’s accomplished that day is a nice bonus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steph Alleva Cornell, Branded Content Editor

Since becoming a young mama in 2020, Steph has found joy in creating beautiful yet relatable content surrounding the raw realities of motherhood. She believes showcasing both the wonders and struggles of being a parent helps other mothers understand that they are not alone in their journey. 

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This post contains a sponsored inclusion of Unreal Snacks but all of the opinions within are those of The Everymom editorial board. We only recommend products we genuinely love.