Working Mom Guilt

I work full time, my husband works full time. Our daughter goes to day care (preschool now). I pick her up and we go home and I start cooking. Sometimes she joins me in the kitchen (she is 4), other times she runs off and plays with her toys. We eat together and talk about her day, then we clean up the house together. Sometimes we practice riding her bike or jump on the trampoline if the weather is nice. If the weather isn’t nice, we end up watching Nick Jr, and I read a book. We get ready for bed, read a story and she goes to bed.

Everyday I feel guilty because I don’t think I spend enough quality time with her, and she watches TV to much. A lot of days I’m tired and I have no idea what to do with her. I look on Pinterest and there are all these ideas, and I used to try to do them with her and almost 100% of the time they completely back fire on me. Should I have this guilt? What do others do to have quality time with their little one?

WildRose

To me, from what you’ve described, I do believe you are already spending quality time with your daughter. Truly, you are. One thing to keep in mind, consider working part time. I worked part time Friday evening (4 hours), Saturday (8 hours), Sunday (8 hours), and Monday evening (4 hours). During that time my ex husband watched our daughter and then I watched our daughter while he was at work. We had no childcare expenses and it was for that reason that I was able to work part time. It was perfect! Perhaps in the future you could do something like this. It was so nice not to have to worry about childcare or what to do when our daughter was sick or there were breaks from school, holidays etc..

1 reply

September 12, 2018

@wildrose_2 Thank you. It means a lot to me since this is my number one worry/ guilt. You made me feel better about my day to day.

The DiaryMaster

I think no matter what, we always feel as parents like we aren’t doing enough for our kids – when in fact, most times we are doing our very best and our kids are doing just fine – but it is a natural part of being a parent to feel that guilt 🙂

@thediarymaster Your so right! I guess I thought this guilt would go away eventually, but it never does. Maybe I should worry if it does go away?

Punkin*Face

October 3, 2018

My son is almost 8 and I used to feel this way. But I know he is happy and provided for. He is a good kid who is kind and smart and thoughtful; and really as long as we’re raising them to be decent human beings, I feel like we are doing good.

I beat myself up now because he doesn’t have a lot of friends. I only ever see 13-14 year olds walking around our neighborhood. He does get socialization during school and at basketball practice. I’m just chalking that up to how much times have changed.

You’re doing just fine!