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Self-Care Minus the Mom Guilt

When everyone from your kids to your spouse to your own conscience tells you it’s wrong to focus on yourself, how do manage self-care without feeling guilty?

Wendy Miller
7 min readNov 2, 2019

As moms, we’re expected to do everything with grace and patience. We’re supposed to change diapers, potty train, plan play dates, help with homework, do laundry, clean, cook, run errands, and pay bills. Sometimes we do all that and more while also working full-time, running a business, going to school, or a combo of all three.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it? So we want to take just a few minutes here and there for a little self-care. Just a little time for us, to restore ourselves and be ready to tackle that list again. Yet when we try, we’re assaulted by guilt. Taking time for ourselves is taking away from everyone else and all that we need to do. It’s wrong. It’s bad. We should feel guilty.

Or should we?

Photo by Gage Walker on Unsplash

Guilt implies wrongdoing

When we feel guilty, we feel bad for breaking a social rule. We feel guilt if we steal. We feel guilt if we attack or kill someone. We feel guilt if we cut someone off in traffic.

But we also feel guilt when our house isn’t spotlessly clean or our meal isn’t as tasty as…

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Wendy Miller
Wendy Miller

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