Mom guilt is a common topic among all of us. We tend to feel bad about so many things when it comes to our kids. None of us are perfect, and yet, we still strive to be superhuman and always at our best. But we all know that this is an impossible goal. We all get worn out, burned out, overtired, and yes, even sick. It can be so hard to be everyone's everything when we're healthy, but when we're sick, we're failing at it all over the place. And instead of letting it go when we're not feeling well, we feel bad about it.
I was recently knocked down with illness along with the rest of my family, and I found it really difficult to meet the demands of my 3-year-old during this time. He got sick just one day before me, so for that one day I was really patient and super compassionate with him. I felt bad that he didn't feel good and did all that I could to be there for him.
When it hit me the next day, and over the few days that followed, I was the sickest I'd been in a long time.
That initial understanding and patience I had with him began to erode. I found myself getting frustrated more quickly when he complained about his washcloth not being wet enough or his shirt moving. It began to drive me crazy when nothing I did would pacify him.
I got upset simply because I was so overwhelmed, frustrated, and sick.
I just wanted to rest, and him constantly demanding seemingly crazy things made me snap more than once. Then, my husband would remind me that our child was still sick, too, and didn't know how to deal with it, and I felt even worse. But not from illness, from the guilt of it. He wasn't trying to make me angry and he wasn't being ridiculously annoying for the sake of it … he didn't feel good.
Every time I reacted poorly during the week, the worse I felt.
I tried so hard to keep things in perspective, but there were many times that I felt so crummy that it didn't really work. I was worn out and also, just like my son, not processing it well.
I did my best to give myself some grace, but I still felt bad and apologized to him every time I overreacted.
While he forgave me and still looked to me for comfort, I realized I didn't need to be superhuman. I didn't attempt to do much of anything while we were sick. Letting go of the guilt and moving on was the only way forward. I did my best to meet his needs but still failed a bunch because no matter how I tried to fix his shirt, it still wasn't right.
I stopped trying to do all the things, and gave myself permission to not be at my best mom self when sick. I realized it was OK for both of us to just sit in the sickness and be a bit miserable, but by doing it together, at least we could still cuddle and watch movies and take it easy. The mom guilt wasn't going to win and it shouldn't.
We aren't always going to be perfect, sick or not, and it's important to recognize that. Being so hard on ourselves isn't going to help anything. I was just going to do the best I could, which is all any of us can do when we're sick with kids.
