The Mommy-Guilt Phenomenon

Not so very long ago, I was having an in-depth chat with a former lawschool classmate during her baby's first birthday. Subject in question: mommy-hood. In particular, mommy-guilt.

What is it with us mommies? Why do we subject ourselves to an absurd amount of guilt for things not done and left undone.

For her, the guilt often came whenever she took time to have her nails done prior to a hearing in court ("Oh my poor baby, why did I leave her? I wonder if she's crying out for me right now"). Despite having fully breastfed her daughter, despite having stayed up late cooking, oesterizing and freezing three day's worth of personalized baby food, despite the sleepless nights and the backbreaking days trotting protectively after an early walker...she still felt guilty.

Why is this so? And why is this so universal among mommies alone? Where do the daddies figure in all this? Are they ever tormented by the guilt of parenting inadequacy?

The other night, I was helping Woog with his homework, trying to take it slow for his sake, and yet continually glancing up at the clock, hoping to finish before an hour was up, which from painful experience, is Woog's breaking point as far as homework is concerned. "We're running out of time, Woog," I finally warned, "so please concentrate."

Immediately, a wave of intense guilt washed over me. Why was I harassing my son? Wasn't it my job to guide him lovingly and patiently through this tiresome repetitious task which will occupy a fourth of his life for the next 14 to 16 years? What kind of a mother am I?

At the same time, I worried about Eli somewhere downstairs, either in the care of his nanny or snoozing in his stroller. I felt another twinge of guilt about not spending enough time with him. We hardly ever have time to read a book together before his bedtime rolls around. And feeling guilty about my inability to cellularly subdivide into several super mommies to accomplish everything somehow seemed like an appropriate emotion for the occasion.

I do not just feel guilty like this once a month, or once a week. I feel this way almost as often as I think of my sons. That compulsion to provide for one's children to the best of one's mothering abilities - from pregnancy to childbirth, from breastfeeding to nurturing, from teaching to supporting - and falling short of one's own expectations, is one hell of a lousy emotion to go through Every. Single. Day. And yet I still do feel this way. Apparently, so do most of the other mothers I interact with.

Yesterday, I was part of a support group that empathized with a fellow mommy co-worker, who sobbed in our collective arms about the problems she was having with her older son - a love-addled fellow who wouldn't quit stalking the girl of his dreams, said terrified girl having reported the incidents to her mother, his mother, and the police (!!!)

My co-worker cried, "What have I done wrong? Haven't I done everything I could to raise him right?"

Again, the guilt weights heavily on the mommy's heart.

Is it our pre-determined gender-ingrained roles that keep us feeling this way? Not so long ago, the daddies brought home the bacon. Now, most of us mommies do, too. Did the generations of women before our time, who stayed at home, kept the house and raised the children, ever feel this way? I may be extremely fortunate to be a working mom, and yet I am irrationally guilty about how this dual role limits the time I spend with my kids. Puzzle that conundrum out.

And the daddies? Today's fathers have taken an increasingly hands-on role in the raising of their children. My husband is one (and I am so insanely proud of him for that). But do they feel the same deep remorse after having spoken curtly to their children? Or spanked them, for that matter? Atch being Atch, simply takes everything in stride. For him, what's done is done. No going over and over the incident wishing he could've done things differently. Gently. Less abruptly.

Like a male co-worker who was talking excitedly the other week about the recent promotion he received. His dream job, he said. Said dream job requiring him to move to the mother office several regions away, relocating his wife (who happens to have a successful retail career here) and his daughter (who'd just gotten settled in school and formed her own circle of friends). Not one iota of guilt there. In his place, what would a mommy do?

I realize mommies today would need to ease up on their harsh expectations of themselves and come to terms with the reality of what they're capable of doing - and not doing. We're not out to raise serial killers or bank robbers or even stalkers. We're here to mother. And if our hearts are softer, more vulnerable and prone to guilt than most, then so be it. If we weren't made that way, there wouldn't be any mommies around at all.

The Making of Home-Sweet-Home

Well, now. It's been quite a while since I've been here. I've been kind of obsessed busy with an on-and-off obsession hobby I've had since I got hitched - planning our dream home. It's a wonder I've actually gotten back to blogging about this family. When I get hooked on something, I become totally enslaved engrossed. To the exclusion of all else. (Which is why I am constantly reminding myself to go easy on Woog as he turns a deaf ear on all and sundry whenever Shawn The Sheep... or Totally Spies... or Jake Long, is on. He has to have gotten this trait from someone in his family. Besides, his tv viewing has been limited to weekends since school started. So, getting one's gander up about one's catatonic son is not a very productive thing to do. But that's another story).

A couple of weeks ago, we attended the house blessing of our good friends, a lovely couple with four kids who set up shop in the same neighborhood where we bought our residential lot. And boy, was their home drool-worthy!

I slavered over the life-sized rocky waterfall formation just beyond their lanai. I lingered over my hazy reflection on each step of the oiled Narra staircase. I ran my fingers along the granite-tops of the kitchen counters, went full rotation around the island worktable. I kept returning to the wonder of the white wooden blinds, and Atch had to forcibly pull me away from the spacious walk-in closet just as the opening prayer began.

Don't even get me started on their lushly landscaped garden and brick window planters.

When we made that first downpayment on our little plot of land two years ago, I made copies of the lot plan and started sketching the lay-out of our future home-sweet-home. With no architectural experience whatsoever, not even access to a downloaded Auto-CAD program, I spent precious hours on what Atch deemed a waste of time ("That's totally premature, Aif. We have to pay off the lot before we start on the house."). After decimating reams of paper and turning a deaf ear to the husband's exhortations, I finally put my dream on the backburner. But not totally forgotten, no.

That house warming party brought it all back.

On the last two days of his vacation, I had Atch drive me all over the city (I knew he was good for something), looking at furniture and house design. I wanted to go into the private subdivisions to take pictures but Atch put his foot down. No sense getting arrested for invasion of other people's privacy.

My enthusiasm was catching. Finally the major financier of the family estimated we had just about made it more than halfway through with the lot payments, it was time to think of renewing the bank loan for the...*gasp*...house of my our dreams. Atch can really be useful once he sets my his mind to it.

We turned over the much-abused, dog-eared lot plan to the contractor brother-in-law for a rendering of an honest-to-goodness house plan. I also handed in a couple of others I copied from the internet (much rolling of eyes on Atch's part), for additional perspective.


I intentionally refrained from mentioning the fully appendiced table of finishing and furnishings (from roof material to paint and fabric color, from flooring to furniture) that I'd painstakingly prepared, complete with sample photos. One thing at a time. Now that I’ve we've gotten the ball rolling, I've got all the time in the world to inch my way through as foreman (Or forewoman. Whatever does you).

Nice, no?

Not that I'm under-appreciating my pragmatic and pennywise bitter better half. He ultimately sees things my way, and for that I adore the socks off of him. Not that I'm discounting the major role that Papa God plays in our life. We lay our plans before Him, and we let Him decide. And I'm so very glad He has decided in our favor.

So I'm easing back to spend time with this here blog, preparing to stoke my energies to take on this this much-awaited future task with all the gusto I can muster.

Good luck to us. And God bless our future home.

Dream home, here we come!

Keeping A-Breast of the Situation II

The winds of fate are blowing the way of breastfeeding. After my post heaping praises on the militant mommy protestors who bared their breasts to protest aggressive milk formula advertisements, a maelstrom of misfortune has fallen upon the milk formula industry in the country.

Yesterday, I passed by my favorite newsstand only to read that the Philippine government has ordered one of the bigger milk subsitute giants in the market, American-based Wyeth, to recall millions of cans of contaminated formula. 4.3 million cans to be exact - encompassing a product line that caters to babies ranging from newborn infants to toddlers.

Would this include cans already partially consumed by the children of an unsuspecting public?

Still, Wyeth continues to insist on the integrity of their products. They actually covered up the incidence of contamination until the Bureau of Food and Drugs conducted a routine inspection and cooked their goose. According to news reports, no claims have yet been filed against the multinational. How? We are talking about the residents of a third-world country here. Even if they file a class-action suit, how would they stand up against a phamaceutical firm backed by THE Western superpower?

How?

I shudder to think about those poor babies who might have inadvertently consumed the tainted formula. My heart (and mammaries) bleed for them.

As it is, according to the Department of Health, breastfeeding in the Philippines has dropped at an alarming rate, primarily caused by eerily convincing advertisements by multinational companies, claiming that so-and-so-brand will build stronger, smarter, brighter-eyed babies; subliminally suggesting that their milk substitutes will give your progeny a better chance at life compared to the "poor unfortunate" breastfed mulititudes.

Addidcted to the media, and blind as bats, even fully lactating mothers succumb to the lure of these advertisements, which push for the purchase of exhorbitantly expensive milk formulas, and going to the extent of implying that a picky toddler can skip a well-balanced nutritious meal as long as he can have a glass of so-and-so milk brand. Load of bull. But for the gullible public, it may as well be the only way to go.


And for the rest of us whose milk ducts have gone the way of the Gobi dessert, we are constrained to make this "informed" choice. It's practical and less messy than having to raise goats for milk, like my great-grandmother did after her milk dried up. Her lucky, lucky children.

There is hope that this huge milky mess to lately hit the baby formula industry will pave the way towards a positive change in attitude towards breastfeeding. But will it stand a chance against the profit-oriented super producers?

Alas, the work of breastfeeding advocates, like a mother's work, is never done.

Keeping A-Breast of the Situation

The other day, on my way to the bank, I espied a very riveting picture in a publication at my favorite newsstand, and no, it wasn't the cover of the latest FHM issue or the un-bare-able exploits of young (and not so young) starlets in full rgb color palette in the local tabloids (although they did merit some second glances).

The headline read: "Mothers Bare Breasts..." , front and center of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, full color picture included. A group of mothers paraded in front of the Supreme Court of the Philippines and unbuttoned their shirts to show support for, what else ... breastfeeding, and the Department of Health's stricter policies on milk formula advertisements. Apparently, milk formula companies were challenging these policies right at the highest court in the land.

Mothers of varied ages bared breasts of different shapes and sizes, affected by various gradients of gravitational pull, all brightly painted in protest slogans against the proliferation of formula as breastmilk substitute. Right then and there, a righteous compulsion to be where the action was and give in to an evil exhibitionist streak to bare the deflated flaps of skin on my chest, took centerstage. And of course, to stand with my sisters-in-arms, those hardy bare-chested women who braved the elements, goggle-eyed onlookers and riot police to proclaim to the world that breastmilk is still best for babies.

Some of them, like a 72-year-old mother of seven, raised purely breastfed children. Just like a friend of mine who called the same day (coincidence?), proudly telling me, in the course of our chitchat, that her 1-year-old daughter is still (still!) purely breastfed. No formula, thank you very much. How I envy them. They keep the costs down, while keeping the babies healthy. If I only had enough milk to last my babies into their second year, Woog would never have had those frightening bouts with asthma, and Eli would be a bigger piglet yet. It got me thinking, that from our accumulated savings on milk formula, we could've built our own home by now, instead of living in a cramped 30-year-old apartment with one toilet. We could only be so lucky.

Eli can't seem to tell the difference, though. My milk petered out in his eighth month, yet every night I remain his trusty soothing human pacifier. The only one who can quiet his cries or put him back to sleep. My lovely boy. Would that I were as easy to pacify. As for Woog, my milk lasted him exactly 11 months. He didn't even miss it at all. Charged full speed ahead to gurgle on the most expensive formula in the market. High-maintenance little bugger. Lovely boy all the same.

Really wished I were there that day, with those brave godivas, proudly presenting mammaries that nourished the world. Even if my own mommy-pumps are bone dry. What would we be without advocates like them?