As a working mom, I have a lot of guilt for not being a stay at home mom. Some stay at home moms might think that sending your child off to an in home daycare 8 hours a day would provide a much needed 'mommy' break. I get that. I understand needing a mommy break. But if I were to measure my day out by percentage of a mommy break, it only makes up about 25% of the day because the other 75% of my day is made up of the stress of work AND good old fashioned GUILT.
Guilt drives me to do things I might not otherwise do. Here is a perfect example of a guilt driven project. One day I felt that I was not doing enough to 'teach' my one and only son the things I feel are important. When this thought settled in my mind, I was packed and on the train with a one way ticket for a guilt trip!
As a result of my guilt trip, I decided to create this very elaborate 'Learning Center' to teach my one and only son about things that I figured I should probably be teaching him; Months, Days of the Week, Special Events, Scripture, etc.
We've had this in place for a couple of weeks now and most days, my one and only son is eager to learn about the day. On those days, I feel like a good mom. I've done well and my efforts have paid off! Pat on the back.
Then there are days, where my one and only son could care less. Then I'm bitter because I put a lot of time and hard work in creating this stupid board. And he won't even muster up a little effort to stand there and move the cards around. Then I realized the hidden blessing in those days...it lessens my GUILT- it doesn't matter because he doesn't even care! Pat on the back anyway, I tried.