“Mother” is a loaded word. It’s a role. It’s being “God in the eyes of a child.” It challenges what being an adult and individual means. When your child is born, you toss everything else out of the window. That little bundle of joy comes first.
This leads to moms feeling immense guilt about asking for and receiving help. Don’t do that to yourself. Here are five reasons moms should not feel guilty about getting help.
1. Childrearing is a Not a Solo Act
You’d like to think you’re not raising your child alone, but it feels like it. Women get caught up in mother mode because they must and become their own last priority. Telling them to drink water or eat healthier solves nothing but adding more tasks to their plate.
Everyone has troubles and a long to-do list, but childrearing is not a solo act. How many waves of feminism does it take to make the world remember that childrearing is family-involved. Across the world cultures, families step in to take care of the kids. Don’t feel guilty about asking family for a little help, whether that’s picking up extra groceries, babysitting or offering company.
Also, you’re not coping out by hiring a sitter. The sitter will not be a sit-in parent or take on your important role. You hired someone to care for your child while you keep a roof over your heads and stay centered.
2. Modern Lives are Rushed and Busy
Modern lives are rushed and busy. You can only automate so much. Once you figure out your meal-planning and grocery delivery strategy, you choose the app that best fits you — and it works for the most part. Some meal-planning apps are too involved and take up time, while others help you eat healthier. Deliveries arrive late, or you get moldy produce due to poor quality control.
Modern lives require a healthy balance of automation, hiring help and family effort. As soon as the kids are old enough, allow them to assist with simple household chores. Teach your children how to help around the house and hire help for the bigger chores to remove stress from your daily load. Everyone pitching in means more quality time together.
3. More Time to Focus on Your Kid
When you free up other areas of your life, you focus on your kid. So, don’t feel guilty about asking for any ounce of assistance you need to get through the day.
Research finds that parental involvement in children’s lives increased in the last two decades due to more involved fathers and a shift in parenthood culture. Interestingly, traffic also contributed to the increase. Shuttling the kids to and from activities counts as quality time to a certain degree. Minimizing stress and unnecessary distractions lets you focus more on one-on-one quality time.
One study found that teens who have infrequent dinners together with family were twice as likely to drink alcohol and engage in other risky behaviors. Spending time together positively affects academic performance, self-esteem and positive behavior.
4. More Time to Be A Great Example for Your Kid
Getting a little help frees you up to focus on other life pursuits and be a great example for your kid. Every day, you show your child how to do something. It’s more than having good manners. It’s standing up for yourself and your family in a myriad of ways. You focus hard at work to provide for your family, but you also make sure you have quality time for your them. When you pursue other activities and hobbies, you show your child that being an adult means being well-rounded, constantly learning and caring for yourself, too.
In one study, daughters of moms who worked finished more years of school and were more likely to be employed as supervisors and at higher income levels — they earned 23 percent more than daughters of mothers who stayed at home. That doesn’t mean that one parenting approach is better than another, but there are advantages to diversifying what adulthood means to you and your family. What do you want to teach your kid?
5. You Have Your Own Life to Live
“I have my own life to live” sounds so selfish as a mother like you’re rejecting motherhood. You’re not.
You are not a bad mother for living your life. Employee, wife, and mother are important roles in your life, but there’s more to you, which is important to remember, cultivate and integrate into your daily “tasks.” Being who you are does provide a great example for your child, but it also grounds and centers you as an individual.
In the end, that makes you a better mom. It broadens your perspective and ability not to take things personally as your child becomes a teen and parenthood gets more challenging throughout the years. It deepens your life satisfaction.
So, don’t feel guilty about receiving a little help. Parenthood comes with good and bad days, and each day is typically a mixed bag.
What do you want to teach your kid? How do you want to start and end each day? When you come to your end of days, how do you want to remember life and parenthood? Do what you need to do to be the best mom and the best you.
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Kacey Bradley is the lifestyle and travel blogger for The Drifter Collective, an eclectic lifestyle blog that expresses various forms of style through the influence of culture and the world around us. Kacey graduated with a degree in Communications while working for a lifestyle magazine. She has been able to fully embrace herself with the knowledge of nature, the power of exploring other locations and cultures, all while portraying her love for the world around her through her visually pleasing, culturally embracing and inspiring posts. Along with writing for her blog, she frequently writes for sites like US Travel News, Thought Catalog, Style Me Pretty, Tripping.com and more!
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