We’ve all been there – standing at our kitchen sink or hiding in the shower, turning thought after thought and decision after decision over in our head. Our brain feels a lot like one of those wheels the Bingo numbers fall out of.
Everything is in there. Every thought. Every decision. And we comb through it all, wondering where we messed up, when we blew it. Letting one Bingo number fall at a time, calling out “B 7” and patiently waiting to see if anyone yells “Bingo!”.
Only there’s no Bingo card and there’s no prize table. Just the opposite in fact. Whiny voices, a challenging day, one kid standing in the corner, while the other one misses the potty and pees on the floor – no, we’re not standing at the sink waiting to see our prize.
We’re waiting to hear the Bingo number that will show us where we messed up today.
We’ll dob each square that’s called until we see a line or a pattern. Five things in a row that we totally messed up. That landed us right here in this Bingo.
And then, instead of getting to pick a prize off the prize table, we are assaulted. Assaulted by the lurking and watchful Mommy Guilt Monster, the one who has been just on the peripheral of the day’s activities. And whether it’s 8am or 8pm, once the Mommy Guilt Monster is out of his cave, he’s a hard one to shake.
Like the most unwelcome of guests, he makes himself at home, and we no more than shoo him out of one room, and finally get the stench and the ooze out, then he has taken up residence in another room, rubbing and saturating himself in there.
The Mommy Guilt Monster knows just when to strike, how to kick us when we’re down, and how to keep us there as long as possible.
But, please hear me, the Mommy Guilt Monster is not undefeatable.
No, the Mommy Guilt Monster can only come into the house if we open the door. And he only hunkers down and makes messes where he’s encouraged to wait while we clean up something else.
So that moment, in all of the teeny moments that let the door start to crack open and in all of the gigantic moments that throw it open and bust the latch, I want to be able to say “I see you Mommy Guilt Monster. But you’re not welcome here.”
P.S. For the entire month of January, we’ll be talking Mommy Guilt here on the blog. (Don’t worry, we’ll talk about some other stuff too!) Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a post in this series. Plus, when you subscribe, you’ll get access to the Whole Bean Resource Library, where you’ll find free printables, pdfs, and more, even some on Mommy Guilt, so be sure to subscribe today (in the box below).
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