What Do You Plead?

This question may as well be asked to every mom on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the question is often answered with a reluctant “guilty,” even when the reality is “not-guilty.” With the rise of social media, Mom Guilt is rampant and real.

The baby company NUK surveyed 2,000 moms and found that 87% felt guilty at some point and 21% feeling guilty most or all of the time! NUK found that mom’s worried most about “being too busy,” “not being more patient,” “relying on the TV,” and “not earning enough money.”

I decided to do my own survey and asked a few of my mom friends if they had felt any form of mom guilt in the last week, and you know what? Every mom I asked said yes. Every. Single. Mom. Now, this was by no means a scientific survey at all, but for each of those moms to say yes is a big deal. Why do we feel this way?

There are so many reasons! Society around is us SO conflicting! One side tells us to be independent women and work so we don’t have to count on our husbands (seriously though, why?) while the other side says that we shouldn’t work so much so that we don’t neglect our kids. We’re left trying to figure out the balance. Well guess what? There really isn’t one! Even if social media perpetuates the lie!

Here’s the fact: some of us have to work, some of us don’t. If we do, we have to spend time away from our kids and we feel guilty. If we don’t, we want to spend time away from our kids and we feel guilty. And some of us are a mixture of the two, and that makes us feel guilty!

We can’t win when we listen to society or compare our lives to the other moms on social media. But what I’ve learned as a working mom and, more recently having gotten to spend a good amount of time at home during my summer break and maternity leave is that the guilt isn’t truth.

When we start listening to the guilt that says we aren’t spending enough time with our kids, or that we are too busy, or that we should be more patient, or that we aren’t earning enough money, we are listening to LIES from the father of lies himself.

“When [the devil] lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44

I’m telling you right now sweet momma, don’t listen to those lies! You are an amazing momma. You are doing great! You are doing what you have to do to take care of your babies. And you are doing what you have to do to take care of yourself. Don’t let the lies take over. If you were anything less than the perfect momma for YOUR baby, you wouldn’t be concerned with the guilt--it wouldn’t eat at you! You wouldn’t second guess it.

But you do question it--you ask yourself if you’re doing enough because you are an amazing momma. Not because you aren’t. Those lies don’t tell the whole story. The story of you worrying about your baby, hoping for an amazing life for their little life, and the desire you have to spend enough time with them to nurture them and help them grow into functional adults. THAT is the truth.

You, sweet momma, are the PERFECT momma for your sweet babies! God created YOU to be your baby’s momma! YOU are exactly what that baby needs, and NO ONE can take that truth away.

Dear God,

Please let the momma reading this see the way you perfectly created them to be their baby’s momma. Give her a peace that she is doing an amazing job. Let her seek you when she feels weak and needs your strength to make it through her day. Help her see that the guilt isn’t truth, and that she is enough.

Amen