Deep down inside, I was hoping that my son would call me out on my lie, but instead, he looked at me with such sad eyes. “Mom, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that I accused you of saying something bad, and you didn’t even do that. You were just caring about me and wanted to make sure that my friends would see my cool cake. I’m so sorry.”
If I were a good human being, I would have backpedaled immediately and said, “You know what? I lied. Mommy lied. Don’t feel bad. Mommy did say a bad word. You don’t have to feel bad about anything.” But I didn’t. Which is why I will probably burn in hell. Years later, I still feel guilty about that conversation, which is only like the 3,586th thing on the rotating platter of regret that I lie awake picking over every single night. So I’d like to dedicate this chapter to dealing with guilt, the powerful force that has ruined pretty much every night of sleep for me over the past sixteen years.
Guilt is a funny thing. There are times we should feel some guilt because we’ve done something wrong. Without the cue that guilty feeling transmits, we’re bound to just keep repeating the same offense. But then there are times when we feel guilty about things that don’t merit our attention, things that aren’t necessarily wrongdoings but just normal human doings that we perceive to be negative and that we fixate on until they poison us.
I think guilt is a little like mascara. There is an appropriate, recommended amount to use—just enough to highlight those lashes to bring out their full potential. But if you apply fifty thousand layers of mascara, your lashes are going to look clumpy and gross, and you’ll probably end up with a freaking eye infection. Guilt works the same way, and piling it on is not a good look. The guilt complex is one of the things nobody warns you about when you get pregnant or decide to adopt. Your friends and family will warn you about numerous challenges you’re going to have to deal with, but nobody warns you about the abuse you’re going to experience—not from your children, not from your spouse, but from yourself. No one mentions all the guilt mascara you will inevitably pile on until it looks like two baby tarantulas have crawled onto your face.
The “shit” conversation with my son might be worth feeling guilty about because there are actual lessons for me to learn there. Maybe that’s one layer of guilt mascara. But why am I always piling on all these other unnecessary layers? I’m talking about layers of guilt like the fact that by the end of each day, I have rarely accomplished everything on my to-do list. Human. The projects I meant to be done with months ago, I haven’t even started. Human. The people who are waiting to hear back from me on something are beginning to get annoyed. Human. The fact that I accidentally double-booked something on my schedule. Human. The text messages I haven’t replied to yet. Human. The lame excuse I made for not wanting to play another never-ending round of Monopoly with my kid. Definitely human. And definitely not worthy of another layer of mascara.
Part of the issue is that we lump all our failures into the same category, in the “you suck and you should stay up all night feeling like crap about this” category. But the thing is, there’s more than one category. Forgetting to set my alarm and getting my kids to school an hour late? That’s an accidental failure. It doesn’t belong in the deep, tormenting guilt category. The one time (today) that I completely lost my patience? That’s a semiaccidental “I’m trying, but I’m an exhausted human” type of failure. Also completely not worth losing sleep over. Betraying someone or being mean or dismissive? Those are more deliberate, self-centered failures that show me where I need to work on myself. And then there’s a whole other category of failures that feel very personal but actually have very little or maybe absolutely nothing to do with me (like all the times I failed to get a job I really wanted). I used to be an expert at dwelling on even the smallest failure for days, as if the outcomes of all my ventures should be completely in my control, as if everything I do belongs in the deliberate, self-centered failures category when really most of what I fail at on a day-to-day basis belongs in the “let it go” category.
Guilt can be a lot like that obnoxious guy who’s been hitting on you for years and you continue to hook up with him even though you know you shouldn’t but he wears you down, showing up only to keep you up all night. He disrespects you and makes you feel like crap. And then he just will NOT. STOP. TEXTING! He’s the worst. Sometimes guilt likes to come over and tell me a really sweet bedtime story called “You Suck,” and it’s about how once upon a time there was an incompetent mom named Kristina, and the story never, ever ends.
I want my kids to have better boundaries with their guilt than I have had with mine, so I try to offer alternative narratives whenever their guilt starts telling them a negative story about who they are.
One day, I picked up my then sixth grader from school, and as she got in the car, she immediately started sobbing.
“Matea, what’s wrong?”
“I got a really bad grade on my math test. REALLY bad! And I feel so guilty about it!”
Math. The subject she’d been getting all A’s in. Personally, I blame the existence of math on Satan, but my daughter is one of those weird humans who actually speaks the language of math really well. Yet here she was with a bad grade and so disappointed in herself. It was the worst grade she had ever gotten. We chatted about it for a bit, but unfortunately, I was in a rush to get her and her brother to their dad’s house for the weekend and our conversation was cut short.
When I got home, I decided to email her. I didn’t want her dwelling on this bad grade for the entire weekend.
Dear Matea,
Soooo . . . you got a really bad grade today, and guess what? I’m proud of you!
I’m proud that you took complete responsibility for it without making any excuses.
I’m proud that you decided to email your teacher and ask for help.
I’m proud that you’re a really good, kind person because that is much more important to me than grades will ever be.
However, a really bad grade does require a consequence, so here is what I expect you to do:
Let it go! It’s nothing to feel guilty about. I know you’re really upset, but don’t let one bad grade ruin your day. A year from now, you won’t even remember this. Plus feeling like a loser has never helped anyone thrive in life.
Keep in mind that one bad grade doesn’t mean you’re a bad math student. And it definitely doesn’t mean you’re not smart. It’s so easy for us to focus on the one time we fail instead of the many times we succeed. You’ll fail again at times. Maybe not at math. Maybe not even at anything that has to do with school. But you’ll fail again in life, and you know what that means? That means you’re a human! (Which is good, because I was kind of hoping for a human when I gave birth to you. After 33 hours of labor, I would have been really bummed if the doctor handed me a turtle. Nothing against turtles.)