Guilty of Not Feeling Guilty

All moms have guilt … or do they? 

Not long ago, I decided I wanted to write a blog about mom guilt. My thoughts leaped around. The sentences wouldn’t gel. Paragraphs refused to flow. I set the blog aside and took off to a writer’s conference. There in my hotel room, I realized a simple truth: I didn’t really feel that guilty.

And that’s when the guilt set in.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m no stranger to mom guilt. Who is? Mom guilt comes in all forms and from all directions. Me? I used to feel guilty for almost everything I did. I felt guilty for working. I felt guilty when I didn’t work. I felt guilty when I missed field trips. I felt guilty when I fed my kids fast food. I felt guilty for parking them in front of the TV so I could finish a project. I often felt as if everything I did wasn’t enough or wasn’t right.

Guilt became a part of life -- a way of being. Perhaps because it was so pervasive, it became a bit like breathing -- something I experienced every day and simply had to accept.

But over the years, especially as my daughters got older and I saw that they were fine, the guilt began to lessen. I began to realize that it really is OK to take time for myself, to pursue a career and to do things that break the rules I’d set for myself. I realized that my being away from them for a short period of time wasn’t going to make or break them. I realized that the occasional trip to a fast-food restaurant wasn’t going to destroy their health.

Truth is, motherhood evolves and unfolds in its own unique way for every woman. There are no commandments to abide by. Skipping field trips doesn’t make you a lesser mother, and getting an occasional spa treatment or attending a work conference doesn’t, either. What matters is your constant presence and love, and it’s the rare mom who doesn’t provide that. (Listen to how other working moms cope with guilt here.)

Still, I do suffer the occasional pang of guilt for liberating myself of mother guilt. When that happens, I remind myself that I’ve had my share and paid my dues. If time has allowed me to acquire some perspective, then OK: I’m guilty as charged.

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Cleaning on the Go!

By Winnie Yu for Completely You



When my kids were little, I used to devote an entire morning to cleaning the house. Three hours straight of scrubbing, dusting and vacuuming. In the end, I had a nice clean house to show for it.

But keeping up that kind of ritual didn’t work. Life got busier as the kids got older, and several years ago, I became the master of the five-minute cleanup. Now, if I have a few minutes to spare, I’ll scrub a toilet, wipe off a counter and dust a few tables. I call it cleaning on the go.

With this new style of cleaning, my house may never be completely clean again. Rather, it will be clean here or there -- just not everywhere. So my living room may be free of dust, but my kitchen will be a fiasco. My bathroom may be sparkling, but my office might be a disaster.

Cleaning this way has taught me three things:

1. I must have a clean bedroom. Going to bed in a room that’s filled with chaos is just not my cup of tea, thank you very much. That means every day, I make my bed; every week, I dust and vacuum my bedroom. If there’s one room that receives top priority, it’s the room where I sleep.

2. A clean kitchen floor makes it easy to let everything else go. When that’s sparkling, everything feels a little cleaner, even if my kitchen counters are a bit cluttered or the mudroom shelves are messy.

3. I am not a neat freak. While I fall on the side of the Felix Ungers as opposed to the Oscar Madisons, I am not nearly as tidy as some neatniks. If I can live with messes, then maybe I’m not as much of a clean queen as I’d like to think I am. And that’s OK. For me, I’ve learned that clean
enough is good enough.

Do you feel guilty about not cleaning often enough? Talk about it!



Winnie Yu is Completely You’s mom blogger. She has two daughters (Samantha, 14, and Annie, 12) and is the author of seven books, including New Mother’s Guide to Breastfeeding and What to Eat for What Ails You. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Woman’s Day, AARP Bulletin, Prevention and WebMD.com.