Mothers have always been hypersensitive to guilt – there’s evidence that this is biologically hardwired. In evolutionary terms, we’re primed with neurochemicals which promote empathy and are essential for mothering. Anna Moore investigates the epidemic of maternal guilt.
For Wendy – and thousands of others – motherhood and guilt go hand in hand.
‘I feel guilty when I leave in the morning and I feel guilty when I come home again just in time for bath and bedtime,’ says Wendy, 44, a mother of two children under five and a marketing executive for a blue-chip company.
‘On a good day, it’ll be a pang and I’ll be able to shake it off. On a bad day, just one thing can be enough to make me question everything – my son blanking me and refusing to say goodbye in the morning; losing my temper when I get home in the evening because I’m tired and they’re tired.
'A tiny thing can send me into anxious turmoil. I start adding up the small number of hours I spend with my children each week and wondering what emotional damage I’m doing to them, to us.
'As mothers, we roll our eyes and laugh about “the guilt” – but there are times when it makes me want to scoop the kids into bed with me, pull the duvet over our heads and stay there. I wonder how we all live with it.’
Earlier this year, the suicide of Sarah Johnson showed that, for one mother at least, ‘living with it’ proved too much.
The mother of three small children – the youngest aged just three – Sarah was a successful lawyer who lived in a £12.5 million Belgravia home with her banker husband. Despite her outwardly happy, secure family unit, in April she jumped in front of a tube train.
The inquest in August heard that she had been consumed with guilt.
‘She felt she hadn’t been a good enough mother,’ said the Westminster coroner, ‘and I think that guilt was considerable for her.’
Dr Ellie Lee from the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies was not surprised by the case.
‘In some ways, what’s surprising is that it doesn’t happen more often,’ she says.
‘If we are constantly hearing that the only safe place for a child is in its mother’s arms, that we have only a brief window in which to get everything right, that mothers need to be emotionally in tune with their children every moment, every day, we will make mothers guilty, anxious and sometimes clinically depressed. Where else can it go?’
According to Dr Lee, this ‘intensification of motherhood’ is relatively new.
Of course, mothers have always been hypersensitive to guilt – there’s evidence that this is biologically hardwired.
In evolutionary terms, we’re primed with neurochemicals which promote empathy and are essential for mothering. (Fascinatingly, this empathy seems to activate from the word go. Girl babies are much more likely to take part in ‘crying contagion’ – crying because they hear other babies crying – than boy babies.)
One survey of 2,000 mothers by babycare company NUK found that 87 per cent feel guilty at some point – with 21 per cent feeling it ‘most’ or ‘all of the time’
With empathy comes guilt – all of which strengthens the bonding process. You register your child’s pain, feel responsible, alter your behaviour accordingly and strengthen your attachment.
That’s the good side. Now, though, says Dr Lee, we feel anguish over our children’s pain – whether real or imagined – and blame ourselves for anything and everything.
‘You only need to pick up the paper to see a report on “breastfeeding and IQ” or “diet in pregnancy and A-level results”.
'It’s not just about whether or not you work; the relentless message is, if you don’t get everything right – the birth, the feeding, the playing, the tone of voice, your child’s nutrition, the school – your child will be scarred for life.’
It wasn’t always so.
‘This all really began in the 1970s and has gathered strength since then,’ says Dr Lee.
‘If you talk to any woman who raised her children in the 50s or 60s, you’ll hear that children were left to get on with it an awful lot more.
'I’m not saying that was a golden age – but it’s important to recognise that we probably weren’t parented in the intense way we parent now.
'My own mother is always struck by how I raise my children – how incredibly time-consuming and child-centred it is. It makes her feel retrospectively guilty for the way she raised me.’
Simultaneous to this, changes in women’s roles have made it harder than ever to fulfil this brief.
‘Women are more likely to be working; they have careers and are often sole breadwinners or single parents – yet they’re expected to be absolutely everything to their child.
'The result is a complete pressure-cooker situation.’
The evidence is all around us these days. No interview with a celebrity mother is complete without reference to juggling and guilt.
Victoria Beckham, Cindy Crawford, Kourtney Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez and Madonna have all confessed to feeling guilty or afraid they are getting it wrong. (Celebrity dads, in contrast, rarely seem to mention it.)
One survey of 2,000 mothers by babycare company NUK found that 87 per cent feel guilty at some point – with 21 per cent feeling it ‘most’ or ‘all of the time’.
The top worry was ‘being too busy’ – others included ‘not being more patient’, ‘relying on the TV to keep the children entertained’, and ‘not earning enough money [to support the children properly]’.
Lorraine Thomas, chief executive of The Parent Coaching Academy, finds that guilt is easily the most common concern mothers raise with her.
‘It’s also the most powerful, most negative and hardest issue to deal with,’ she adds.
Perfectionist tendencies can be lethal in this context.
‘I work in some of the top companies with women who set the bar really high,’ says Lorraine.
‘They’ve enjoyed considerable success at work and when they become mothers, they want to be equally successful.
'It’s a dangerous approach – it’s impossible to overstate the enormity of the mountains ahead!’
Psychologist Oliver James believes the way mothers relate to one another is key. His advice is to accept the mother you are, since no one is perfect
Work tends to come with rigid structures, deadlines, targets and feedback. Motherhood, by contrast, is an unpredictable daily assault course. You fall down, get up again, keep trying, keep learning.
During her pregnancy Charlotte, a systems analyst and now the mother of an 18-month-old, hadn’t factored in the guilt.
‘I was very clear on how I was going to parent,’ she says. ‘Returning to work made perfect sense – on paper, it still does.
'We need two incomes to pay the mortgage; I’m the higher earner, our children’s grandparents provide loving childcare.
'I also believe it’s good for a girl especially to see a mother with a working life. But the guilt of actually doing it is poleaxing.
‘The only thing that helped me was talking to a former colleague who left work to raise her children,’ she continues.
‘I blurted out how lucky she was to be free from guilt and she laughed. She said she felt guilty every day!
'Guilty because they have very little money now, which is a struggle, which makes her stressed, which makes her short-tempered.
'She feels guilty every time she whams on a DVD to entertain her children – and she feels guilty because she often wishes she was back at work!’
‘My stay-at-home clients feel just as guilty as working mums,’ confirms Thomas.
‘Working mums regret the time away from their children. Full-time mums feel guilty that they don’t enjoy being at home as much as they should.
'They’re with their children all the time, but they don’t feel engaged all the time. They can be tired, impatient, resentful or bored.
'For both groups, it comes down to the same thing. They’re not being the mothers they wanted to be – or feel they ought to be.’
Voicing your feelings – rather than burying them – can be helpful, as can finding support from other mothers.
The most toxic, guilt-inducing threads on parenting websites such as Mumsnet are those where mothers who feel vulnerable and guilty (whether for bottle-feeding or working or not working) line up to aggressively defend their choices.
The most powerful are where mothers let down their guard and admit that they’re struggling.
On one Netmums thread, headed ‘Mother’s Guilt’, Georgina writes, ‘I feel guilty because I’m grumpy in the morning and likely to shout at my toddler for the slightest thing…
'I feel guilty if I think I spend more time with one child than the other. I feel guilty if I give them fish fingers and beans for tea.
'I feel guilty when I don’t want to read the bedtime story, which I do but then I feel guilty for not enjoying reading it! I feel guilty about EVERYTHING... Please tell me I’m not alone or offer me some advice to get over this guilt!’
The confessions come back thick and fast – with a lot of relief thrown in.
‘I spend a good 90 per cent of my time feeling guilty,’ writes Becky. ‘Thank goodness I read this thread; I thought it was just me who felt this way,’ adds another.
‘I feel guilty about working two days a week…’; ‘I feel guilty about spending money on myself when I should be spending it on new clothes/shoes/food/days out for the children…’
Over on Mumsnet, guilt is equally all-pervading, whether over the question of returning to work, giving the baby a dummy, ‘finding babies boring’ or taking time out to go to the hairdresser, get some exercise or even have counselling.
Psychologist Oliver James believes the way mothers relate to one another is key. His advice is to accept the mother you are, since no one is perfect.
‘There’s scientific evidence that mothers fall into three categories,’ he says.
‘The “huggers” make up about a quarter. They don’t work if they have a choice and see babies to be in need of constant attention.
'The “organisers” make up another quarter. They believe it’s possible to regulate their babies’ needs to fit around their own lives. They are more likely to follow Gina Ford in the baby years and return to a full-time job.
'The “flexi-mums” make up the rest and they’re the pragmatists. They try to juggle their children’s needs with a life that’s livable, often working part-time.’
According to James, all approaches bring advantages and challenges – and all come with guilt attached, partly as a result of feeling judged by the other camp.
‘My advice would be to identify which of these descriptions fits you, and get on with being that person,’ he says.
‘Don’t attack other mothers for doing it a different way, and don’t compare yourself with them either. It’s not the approach that matters so much as being comfortable in your own skin.
'We’re all going to mess up occasionally – it’s not possible to get it right or be perfect, at least not all the time.
'The most soothing thought there has ever been is the phrase from the English psychoanalyst D W Winnicott: “The ordinary devoted good enough mother.”’
Dr Lee takes comfort from the fact that the more years you clock up as a mother, the easier the role becomes.
‘As your child gets older – and especially if you have more than one – you begin to see for yourself that not everything can be down to you.
'Your children turn out differently whatever you do. There are so many factors that make up your child’s experience – school life, peers, personality, extended family, random events…
'The idea that it all leads back to the mother is a really lazy shorthand. And when you start to realise that, you relax.’
HOW TO DEAL WITH MATERNAL GUILT
Lorraine Thomas, chief executive of The Parent Coaching Academy and author of The 7-Day Parent Coach, has these tips…
● ACCEPT THAT ALL MUMS FEEL GUILTY - WHATEVER THEIR CHOICES. Don’t compare, don’t judge. We’re all doing the best we can – which means simply being ‘good enough’.
● FOCUS ON THE BENEFITS OF YOUR CHOICES AND FIND THE POSITIVE. Mothers rarely ask, ‘What have I achieved?’ – they focus on ‘What went wrong?’ Write down what’s gone well with your child: the magic moments, the milestones.
● SEEK CONNECTION NOT PERFECTION. Make moments where you zone out of the to-do list and the work and tune into your child. Depending on age, it could be reading by torchlight, dancing round the room or shopping together – a good store of happy memories is the antidote to guilt.
● FIND FUN. Mothers often take on the role of planning and logistics, so dads get to be the ones who find the fun – tickling at bedtime or taking the children to the cinema (while you clean the house). It can leave mothers without those crucial connective moments. Share the load more equally and don’t let your partner have all the play time!
● LIMIT YOUR SCREEN TIME. Whether it’s answering emails or catching up with friends, being on your phone or laptop distracts you from your child and eats away at the moments you do have together – leaving you feeling guilty and less connected. Putting the phone away and concentrating on your child can make a massive difference.
● LOOK AFTER YOURSELF. It sounds counterintuitive but creating ‘me time’ for exercise, rest and respite, maintaining a healthy diet and getting uninterrupted sleep can have a big impact. Guilt thrives in the stressed and tired.
THE GUILT OF THE CELEBRITY MOTHER
