Guilt

[BroadBeer]

Good morning.
I’ve been in bits this morning - tears the lot.
This morning my youngest was offered a place at our first choice of secondary school. It got me thinking that pretty soon, primary school will be done and dusted for us as a family.
My daughter is truly my best friend and so wonderful - this morning I had crushing guilt that I’ve just not been present in her school activities.
Thanks to the cost of living, I have to work FT so I can keep a roof over our heads & food on the table - and much of my daughters school/fun days take place during working hours. They have coffee mornings, cake sale afternoons, book days where families can come along, competition reveals (all before 3pm) … and I just can’t make them. (I need to keep my AL for half terms and 6 weeks) and as it’s her last year, it really is the last time to fully soak up all of this.

I feel like I’m missing out on these precious moments. I miss being there - I don’t feel like I’m being the mother she deserves.
She does so well in school - she’s bright, funny and outgoing - I see twitter updates with her speaking in front of all the parents, helping with the coffees and teas, helps welcome parents and grandparents into the school, take money for raffles - and where am I? Stuck behind a laptop.
I’m so guilt ridden this morning. I’m missing it all. I’m not one for crying really - but this morning I’ve had to step away from my laptop and have had a mini meltdown. All of my friends who have kids at the same school are PT or SAHM, so I feel very lonely in this.
I really am doing my best - but feel like such a failure. Please say I’m not alone here…

You aren't a failure, you're working to provide.

Would your work allow you to step away for an hour and build that hour back up on a night time so you can go to some events?
Could you use your dinner hour? And just take it earlier/later than normal.

Thank you. I’m going to call my manager on Monday so see about this (even if it’s just a few times) - she has children & works PT, so I’m hoping she can understand my predicament. I know getting my work done is important and I’m paid for my time, but money will never buy back these moments. Just really feeling it today.

Working mum guilt is real. I think it intensifies as they get towards the end of primary and we realise, as you have, that childhood is ‘running out.’ Different scenario (I really hate school teas🤣) but I got oddly upset when my DD started showing signs of puberty at 10. My friend thought I was being mad but it just really struck me like a freight train. Inexorable progress of time and all that. Life has gone by really fast with my youngest and I wasn’t ready. Doesn’t change anything, it’s my problem not hers. I won’t baby her or try to keep her young. But nonetheless, it shook me. I’m sure it was only a couple of years ago she was a little scone playing with her dolls and watching Tangled every chance she got. Turns out, no, it’s crept up.

It’s not easy but if you don’t have a choice then all you can do is what you’re doing. I wonder if you know, though, how much of a positive role model you’re offering your daughter? She sees a mum who loves her, a hard worker, a committed, capable woman. You turn up and do what you must. She sounds like she’s very like you, and is flourishing under your parenthood.

Oh now you’ve got me in tears again 😭🤣
thank you so much, I needed to hear that. She’s a great little person, who is doing so well (I too am not a fan of the coffee mornings when I used to go, haha - but it was wonderful seeing her doing her thing) I guess we always want to do more. Mum guilt is something else!

When I was your daughters age my mum could work 10 days on the run as a nurse and we barely saw her with shift patterns and my day worked abroad for 6weeks -4-6 months at a time. I can't remember them at school plays or sports days or book clubs. The school week was a blur mostly with my grandparents but I have many many lovely memories from holidays and weekends and they matter more than anything when they were around as they worked through most of them too. As long as there is a good balance of being available and not children have a special knack of remembering the special times you are together and forgetting the mornings at school you missed.

I think the idea of a few hours of Flexi time over the next 6 months to allow you to do the odd celebration as you and your daughter navigate the last 6 months of primary school is a good idea and then focus on the good times at the weekends and school holidays.

I think a little bit of mum guilt is a good thing as long as it's in proportion. It says I look at my life and see if there is something I'm missing. Am I getting all I need from life and are my kids too? What can I change? This can be healthy. If you find yourself consumed by these thoughts and always having to be better and beating yourself up for things beyond your control that's when to speak to someone.