Fighting the Guilt Within

Catholic guilt may run deep (and as a papist I would know), but I'm beginning to think the guilt of motherhood is the worst kind of guilt.

I'm going back to work next week after ten weeks at home with my little nugget and I feel so many mixed emotions, guilt being pretty high on the list, and I find myself wondering if I'll ever feel a sense of normalcy again? I know "normal" will be a much different normal from my pre-parent days, but I feel like the past ten weeks were a sort of intermission between acts one and two of my life.

I'm waiting anxiously for my new "normal" because, frankly, I'm not sure how I'll feel once I'm back at work. I like my job, I like working, I like my co-workers and feel lucky in this economy to have a stable job with good benefits. But then . . . I look at my daughters sweet face and I can't imagine handing her over to someone else to nurture and play with and snuggle all day while I sit at a desk, wistfully wishing it was me holding her.

So guilt. So much guilt.

Will it go away? Or will it just get worse?

I fear I'll feel guilty for putting her in day care.

But I'll feel more guilty that I'll like being back at work. There have been hard days over the past ten weeks when I've caught myself thinking "I can't wait until I'm back at work . . ." And then I want to cry along with Helen for feeling so!! I should love every second of my time home with her!

Does anyone else feel like this?

Is anyone else struggling with the internal stay-at-home-mom debate? One day (today for instance) I absolutely believe I would love to stay at home in a few years once we can afford it and give Helen a sibling. But there's another part of me that thinks I'll love being back at work. Working won't make me a bad mother - maybe it will make me a more focused mother because I'll have to make the most of every minute I spend with my little girl.

But if I don't work . . . I don't pay off my student loan debt, my husband does. And yes, while the rational part of my brain knows that just because I wouldn't be "working outside the home," the idea of not working for moeny in my own right while still paying off college debt brings on a whole other kinds of guilt . . .

Does guilt ever end???