Pearl - Mom Guilt Is a Lie – You’re Just a Bad Parent

00:00:00.000 I wanted children to enrich my life, not enslave my conscience. Now there's women that also have 1.00

00:00:05.820 articles on how to make yourself feel better about mom guilt when you have a career. So again,

00:00:12.140 men, when they make a choice, they just deal with the consequences, right? Men accept that. If they

00:00:17.620 have to work the night shift, they are like, look, I did what I had to do. I understand it.

00:00:21.500 But women have to rationalize bad decisions, I would say. So dear working mother, you're doing 1.00

00:00:29.440 a great job and your kids will turn out just fine despite the hours you spend away from them, truly.

00:00:36.460 Cope. See, again, it's like the cope. It's the, I want to have it all and I want to do what I want

00:00:41.280 regardless of how it affects my children. And so, yeah, I'll just keep doing what I want.

00:00:46.620 So I'm going to write articles rationalizing this instead of doing what I know is right.

00:00:52.220 So of course, you probably didn't always feel that way about yourself. If you are like most

00:00:58.440 working moms, I know you may feel like you're coming, you're forever coming up short and it

00:01:03.340 comes to doing enough, giving enough and being enough for your kids. Not to mention your boss,

00:01:07.900 your partner and your aging parents and extended family. And of course your community. I haven't

00:01:13.080 even mentioned doing, being and giving enough for yourself, but that's another article. I was

00:01:18.460 warned about mother's guilt while expecting my first child. However, having grown up with a hearty

00:01:24.860 dose of Catholic guilt, I feel it couldn't be that bad. And then I became a mother. And over

00:01:29.800 the course of five years, I had four healthy children in between stop staring graduate studies

00:01:36.200 towards a new career. Needless to say, it was during that time I became much more acquainted with

00:01:40.760 mother's guilt. It became a constant companion until one day I realized that I didn't have children

00:01:46.140 in order to spend my life feeling forever inadequate. I wanted children to enrich my life, not

00:01:51.720 enslave my conscience. It's time to reclaim our right to enjoy our kids. So it's time to,

00:01:57.800 what they're saying is they want to take the clout from the kids and all the,

00:02:00.920 all the good stuff they get from the kids without doing the bad stuff. So that's what she's trying

00:02:06.640 to say. Lest child rearing become a long exercise in never measuring up. But how do working mothers 1.00

00:02:14.320 stop wrestling with constant guilt? First, we must uncover the destructive forces that are driving it. So

00:02:20.760 the need to do the right thing, like the guilt inside, um, that's, what's driving it. But instead

00:02:26.940 of doing the right thing, they just are going to like push that down and keep doing the wrong thing.

00:02:32.560 Um, before below are five ways to embrace your shortfalls as a mother and refocus your

00:02:38.500 precisely finite energy on what truly matters. Ensuring that your kids, ensuring your kids know

00:02:45.660 they're wanted, loved and lovable, no matter what. See, again, women's solution is saying things. 1.00

00:02:50.240 It's never doing things, right? It's always telling your kids you love them, but not,

00:02:55.780 it's never showing them by spending time with them and being pleasant, right? Like that's the

00:03:00.320 harder part. Being a nice person, being pleasant. It's easy to say, I love you, right? That's easy.

00:03:06.500 Um, and it's the same thing with men. They're like, well, tell them how you feel. Well,

00:03:10.580 does it matter if what you say, if you don't back it up with actions and that, that they benefit

00:03:17.020 from having you as a role model for a rewarding life, except trade-offs is inevitable. When you

00:03:23.440 choose to combine motherhood and a career in any way, shape or form, there will always be trade-offs, 0.98

00:03:27.820 sacrifices and compromises. What is crucial to your happiness, as well as your ability to starve off

00:03:32.820 guilt is reconciling those trade-offs by being crystal clear about why you're making them in the

00:03:38.440 first place? Create a list of the reasons why you work money, satisfaction, sanity, to provide a

00:03:46.520 helpful reminder of your personal convictions when you work or from attending a concert and compels you

00:03:54.420 to outsource the organization of your child's birthday party. When I'm not able to be involved

00:04:00.960 with my kids' activities, as it might seem ideal, I am very clear that my kids, my family, and myself

00:04:06.440 are ultimately all better off because I have a rewarding career outside of the home. Number two,

00:04:11.420 don't should on yourself. Do you know what's so crazy? Men can hear the word should and agree.

00:04:18.160 Women, it's like we can't handle it. Like women, if you say you should lose weight to a fat guy, 1.00

00:04:24.660 he'll say, I know. But if you say that to a woman, like it's, it's World War III, you know? 0.97

00:04:32.760 So mother's guilt will not always, sorry, mother's guilt was not always a mother's lot. Mothers in the

00:04:43.220 Victorian England banished children and nursemaids before farming them off to a boarding school at age 0.97

00:04:49.000 five so they could continue to their high-T social lives. Acclaimed photographer, Dorothea Lange, 0.87

00:04:57.720 paid foster families to look after her children so she could venture off on a months-long photography 0.75

00:05:04.900 expedition. That sounds like a terrible mother. Do you know what I mean? It's like McDonald's is

00:05:10.720 hiring and you could do that when the kids are older, you know? I feel like women, whenever they 0.52

00:05:17.240 do something at the expense of the children, it's because they want to bang somebody at work or 0.67

00:05:22.140 somebody there. Because like that is the only force that I see women like doing crazy things 1.00

00:05:31.120 that's strong enough, right? So I bet there's hot guys that she was photographer like taking pictures 1.00

00:05:36.780 of or something or near her, I don't know. Likewise, I cannot recall my own parents ever coming to a

00:05:42.740 softball game or reading me bedtime stories. Truth be told, I never gave it a second thought

00:05:46.860 until I found myself guilt-ridden when unable to attend one of my children's games or too tired

00:05:53.680 to read them a bedtime story. Why? Because I had unwittingly taken on board a mother load of good

00:06:01.100 parent shoulds that my mother never did. And it's so crazy because men can admit like when they're bad

00:06:07.060 at something. So men will say, yeah, I was a bad dad. Like I've actually heard men admit that where they

00:06:16.320 said, you know what, I wasn't the best father. But admitting that as a woman, it's like World War

00:06:22.140 Three, you know, we can't all be good at everything. Some things we're just not good at. And you know,

00:06:27.000 like men, I've met men that were say alcoholics, right? And they can admit they just weren't the

00:06:32.140 best dad. And they live with it. But women, they'll write articles. Like instead of just saying, 1.00

00:06:38.380 you know what, I'm a bad mom, they'll write an article rationalizing the fact that they're not a bad

00:06:43.360 mom. That's the I enjoy being involved in my children's activities and in their lives. But

00:06:48.920 I also know they don't need me cheering them on at every game, creating scrapbooks for every

00:06:53.700 milestone, or welcoming them for home from school with fresh baked muffins in order to feel loved and

00:07:00.540 grow secure into well rounded adults. While they are central to my life, my world does not revolve

00:07:06.000 around them. I'm sure they love hearing this. Can you imagine reading this? Did you see what your mom

00:07:10.720 wrote about you? She said her life does not revolve around you. Nor do I believe it would serve them

00:07:20.580 any better if I did. Three, lowering your bar to good enough. The bar on what it means to be a great

00:07:26.080 parent has gradually been moving up. You know, women used to like sew their kids clothes. But somehow 1.00

00:07:34.100 we're like deluded into thinking the bar for being a good parent has moved up. We don't even raise our

00:07:39.480 kids. I mean, we throw our kids. It's like you could put the kid in daycare. My sister worked

00:07:44.680 at a daycare. They throw them in like six months in my, my sister was raising your children. Okay,

00:07:50.700 my sister did it. So I have firsthand. And you know what my sister would tell me how bad some of the

00:07:56.740 people watching the kids were. So I know what's going on in these daycares and you people aren't

00:08:01.160 going to like it. Um, okay. Oh, we got a super chat. Thank you. Daily driver. If you have anything

00:08:08.940 you want to read, um, feel free. Okay. So the, all right. So where were we after all it's who we are

00:08:20.380 for our children, happy, good, humored, and a role model for values that we believe in that ultimately

00:08:25.880 impacts how close we are, our homes, our meals, and responsible for women are for on the front 0.96

00:08:31.780 cover of women's magazines. The reality is that you don't have to be a perfect parent to be a great

00:08:36.200 parent. See, there it is. You do have to be damn near a perfect parent to be a great parent. Like

00:08:41.820 that's, you can't be great at something unless you're close to perfect. Right. But you know,

00:08:49.060 there's a level parents, there's B level there's C men know that there's good enough, right? Like

00:08:55.420 men kind of understand, like really, I've heard more men going by trying to get like passing grades

00:09:00.720 good enough. They're like, you know what? As long as my kid's not on the street, he's not doing drugs.

00:09:06.500 My daughter's not on only fans, you know, maybe she grows up to be like a lazy person, but she's not 1.00

00:09:13.400 the lady or maybe, you know, maybe she like, she has her flaws. She's still a woman, but at least 1.00

00:09:18.820 she's good enough. Or my son, yeah, he's, he has this bad character trait, but you know what?

00:09:23.900 He's not doing drugs. Men can accept that about their kids, right? They're like, you know what?

00:09:28.000 Good enough. That's a stamp. That's passed. But women, it's like, they have to be great at things. 1.00

00:09:35.300 You can't just be, well, I was an all right mom. All right. Refuse to buy into guilt mongerers.

00:09:43.340 While some women thrive on critiquing other women's parenting proficiency, the best mothers 1.00

00:09:48.700 I've met have no need to throw stones at how other people parent their children. They're simply

00:09:53.440 more interested in doing the best that they can on their own. So while you can't always avoid the

00:09:58.100 righteous parenting police, you can choose to see their self-inflating opinions on everything from

00:10:04.420 disposable diapers. I didn't even know there wasn't disposable diapers. Do you guys clean that? Ew.

00:10:11.580 Sorry. Okay. To disciplinary tactics for what they are. An easy way to justify their own choices and

00:10:18.600 conceal doubt about their own parenting skills. The fact is there is no one right way when it comes

00:10:23.600 to raising children. Just as we all differ in our personalities, preferences, and circumstances,

00:10:29.740 the choices that we make make us feel whole, healthy, and happy differ as well. To those who

00:10:37.160 love to critique and judge, and to all those who felt a long string of judgment remark or scornful

00:10:43.100 glance, I say to each their own. So again, women's biggest fear is being judged because again, 1.00

00:10:48.760 it makes perfect sense. Like if we had a bad reputation in a tribe, do you know who was going to get our

00:10:56.020 head chopped off or sacrifice to the gods? Like they used to believe in like sacrifice.

00:11:02.760 And so if you weren't like, if you had a bad reputation as a woman, guess who was getting 1.00

00:11:08.560 her head chopped off next? Guess who was on like the Salem witch trials? Do you know what I mean? You.

00:11:14.620 So we had to protect our reputation with our life. Men had to work on being useful. There's nothing worse

00:11:21.580 than a useless man, right? Like that. So men, they don't really care if they're liked. They're kind 1.00

00:11:28.140 of like, eh, I don't care if you think my kid is good or bad. I care that my kid isn't doing drugs

00:11:35.240 and is not in jail and graduates from high school, makes it to 18 without being pregnant or getting

00:11:40.660 someone pregnant. If I've done that, I've done my job. Good enough. And if the kid comes back and says, 1.00

00:11:47.320 you were a bad parent in this way and this way and that way, the mothers, it's world war three. 0.59

00:11:51.960 And the dads will say, I was the dads will say, yeah, I was, but you know what? You're alive. Aren't

00:11:59.180 you women? We just can't like own the fact that we're not perfect. You know, like men, they know 1.00

00:12:06.600 they're like, well, I could have been better. I could like, they're like, yeah, you know,

00:12:11.520 and it's the same thing at work. Like they don't, as long as they're doing a good job,

00:12:15.980 they don't care if everyone thinks they're doing good. They don't care. Like that's how women get 1.00

00:12:20.280 all these useless awards because they care about them. Right? So, you know, I've heard about women 1.00

00:12:25.460 getting awards for work that men have done, but men just don't care about that. So they're just like,

00:12:31.320 here you go. They don't care about credit, but women, it's like, I know, just take the L, 1.00

00:12:38.700 Zach in the chat, he's saying, just take the L's. Why can't we? You know, I was raised in cotton

00:12:44.700 diapers. My dad would throw these bad boys over the fence and hit them with garden hose.

00:12:49.440 Five, don't dilute your presence with distraction. We can't be with our kids 24-7 and yet never be

00:12:57.320 fully present to them. While turning off from work and other distractions, it's easier said than done.

00:13:02.960 It's important to be intentional about being fully present to your children. Whenever you are with

00:13:09.720 them by minimizing the multitasking as much as humanly possible. I often take my kids out for

00:13:16.480 a hot chocolate at a local cafe as a sweet treat for me and for them as well, which removes me from

00:13:22.120 the magnetic pull of my home office. Some may believe this is going great lengths to avoid

00:13:27.260 distraction, but as I've mentioned, it's not about what other people think. It's what works for me.

00:13:31.680 So what women tend to do is we like to buy. We have a hard time being a nice person, 1.00

00:13:37.680 right? We have a hard time, like just being pleasant. Like that's very difficult for us,

00:13:42.940 you know, not being a bitch, not nagging. So what we like to do is buy things and hope you forget all 0.98

00:13:51.260 of the bad things we do. And men are easily like guilt tripped and kids can really, I mean, they can

00:13:58.260 be bought. Right. I mean, it's like you buy my sister concert tickets to Adele. She forgets,

00:14:04.020 you know? Um, so yeah. And that's easier than again, the hard thing, which is like character

00:14:11.900 building, like men, if they don't build their character, they get beat up by other men.

00:14:16.240 They get taken advantage of by women. Like the life happens to them, but women, we can just be like, 1.00

00:14:21.300 nah, that's too hard. You know? All right. What other mothers are doing is none of your business, 0.99

00:14:26.480 doing what works for you, for your children and your family to stay happy, stay humored

00:14:30.120 and connected is all that matters. I actually do agree, but mothers will make it everyone's

00:14:36.640 business because they can't shut up on the internet. So they will, they will give like best practices to

00:14:41.640 parent and whatnot. So they'll say that, but like she's got a blog talking about how she parents,

00:14:46.960 like she just talked about the hot chocolate. Right. So they say it, but they don't mean it. So,

00:14:51.660 I mean, women, right. 1.00

Pearl - April 12, 2025

Mom Guilt Is a Lie – You’re Just a Bad Parent

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