Replacing Mom Guilt With Grace.

I am guilty. Guilty of being the mom who drowns herself in the mom guilt pool. Mom guilt is the worst and it’s so hard to not feel guilty about practically everything these days.  Honestly, thanks to Google, I once actually convinced myself my toddler had swallowed a battery and his stomach was going to explode in his sleep. I felt guilty for not watching him more closely to see what he actually ingested from off the floor.  Crazy, right? I can feel guilt over what I do or don’t say to my kids. What I do or don’t do with my kids. The list goes on. 

Then there is social media. I see those mom posts, you know the ones. {That mom} looks so dang gorgeous. Her kids are ALWAYS dressed (mine rarely are) and she’s made another successful outing with her toddlers seem so effortless. Meanwhile, I am tracing back thoughts from this morning’s shenanigans. Why in the world did I think taking twin two-year-olds to my son’s school to hand out cupcakes would go smoothly? My husband said it was a bad idea. Yet, I knew I’d feel guilty if I didn’t bring in the cupcakes at lunch since that’s what ALL the moms do. Confidently, I went in expecting it all to go smoothly. But instead, I had one twin screaming at the top of his lungs, and the other on top of the bleachers refusing to get off. (The look on his face was telling me he was about to go no. 2. Of course, I had no change of clothes with me.) The birthday boy was crying, “why did you bring the brothers, Mom!” Talk about GUILT.

And that wasn’t even the worst mom guilt I experienced that week. Let’s just say a trip to the hospital during the birthday party was enough to put me into full mom failure mode. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. 

Aren’t we all guilty of replaying certain events in our heads until we make ourselves sick over it? I realized this week the importance of giving myself grace. It was such a divine intervention. The word grace kept appearing over and over when I needed to hear it the most. And I want to extend it to all my mom peeps who are in need of hearing it.

Give yourself grace, forgive yourself for the mom-mistakes that are burdening you today. God extends His Grace to us daily.  We all extend grace to our kids repeatedly for doing the same darn things we ask them not to do. So why is it so difficult to extend ourselves the same grace?! Is it because we feel like we need to punish ourselves and by feeling guilty, that’s exactly what we are doing? If we aren’t careful, sulking in the past and our guilt can fog our ability to be in the present. It can keep us from seeing our kids still love us unconditionally and mistakes are just that…mistakes.

Mom guilt is inevitable because we are so hard on ourselves. I am replacing mom guilt was grace today and I hope you will too. We deserve to forgive ourselves because we know we are trying our best even when we feel we’ve failed. Grace.