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All moms who work have felt it before. Working mom guilt. You know that you’re working for a purpose and that you aren’t ruining your kids lives, but it seems to always kick you in the gut on the worst day possible. When you were up all night last night with the baby and you are running behind on work all day long. so you are 5 minutes late to pick up the kids, your patience is running thin and your daughter reminds you that you are supposed to bake 500 cupcakes for the bake sale tomorrow.

You start feeling crazy guilt for not being “that mom” who seems to have it all together. That mom who never misses a bake sale because she has a deadline. That mom whose phone never rings during conferences. That mom who makes a full breakfast every morning instead of throwing some cold cereal together in a mad rush. So how do we deal with it?

Dealing with Working Mom Guilt

Know Why You Work

Everyone works for a different reason, and no reason is better than the other. Maybe you work because it fulfills you. Maybe you work to put a roof over your head and food in your kids’ bellies. Maybe you work to afford dance lessons or preschool. Whatever your reason for working, know it and own it. Having a purpose will help when your kids ask why you have to go to work when all you want to do is stay home and snuggle them. Also try to explain your why to your kids. I’m not saying that when your preschooler is upset you’re leaving the house you should tell them that if you don’t go to work they’ll lose their house and not have any more food. But maybe explain to them that mommy works because it helps to pay for their nice things. Keep the discussion on their level.

Pick Your Priorities

Honestly, even if you weren’t working, you probably wouldn’t have time to bake 500 cupcakes for the bake sale tomorrow. This kind of goes back to that Facebook picture that goes around about college that has a triangle with grades, sleep, and a social life at each angle and says “choose two”. There’s no way to do everything all at once. For moms, that might be working, a great relationship with our kids, and cleaning might be our three options. You can’t have all three. So with work, maybe your priorities are putting in enough hours, and providing results for your boss or clients. At home, maybe it’s eating dinner as a family every night or tucking your kids into bed every night. Pick some good priorities and let the rest slide.

This May be a Season

This tip comes into play more if you’re working out of necessity. Our lives are filled with different seasons, and in this season you are working. That does not mean that you’ll be working until your kids are in college and “miss their whole childhood”. I always thought that I would be a working mom. When I was with my ex-husband, there was no choice but to work to help keep a roof over our heads. Then during my divorce it became clear that I was now fully [or nearly fully] responsible for supporting myself and my kids, so being a stay at home mom seemed that it would never be possible. Fast forward a few years, and I’m now a work at home mom, after being a stay at home mom for over a year. We don’t know what will happen a few months down the road.

Overall, we’re all moms. We all deal with various forms of mom guilt whether we work outside the home, inside the home, or stay at home. We’re all doing our best, and we just need a little grace.

What are your reasons for working? Do you ever deal with working mom guilt?

About Kaylene

Kaylene George is an autistic self-advocate, author, and mother of five, including one autistic child. She realized her own autism as an adult shortly after her son received his initial diagnosis. Suddenly the parts of her that seemed so “weird” to society had an answer. Since then, Kaylene has passionately shared about her experiences with autism from both sides of the great divide between parents and autistic self-advocates on AutisticMama.com.