Combating the tyranny of guilt in mom's life is key to arming her with the strength to be there at work and for her family. First comes acknowledging that there's the good and the bad guilt. Didn't know there were two kinds? The truth is that parenting comes with inevitable guilt, but it is not all valid. On the good side, guilt can sometimes show you where you are deviating from the path you want to go on or are shortchanging yourself or your family. That's when you need to pay attention. Not in a paralyzing, feeling horrible kind of way, but in redirection and making new choices. Don't beat yourself up, but instead focus on the new chances and opportunities tomorrow brings to do things differently.


      On the bad end of the guilt scale is addressing things in your family that were fine to you yesterday just because your friend has her family sitting together for breakfast at precisely 7:15am or never seems to misplace a school newsletter. Letting go of perfection myths or comparing yours to other families is critical to mom sanity. Nothing is exactly as it seems. Even if others are not going out of their way to present a shiny image (and let's face it, people tend to prefer to put their best foot forward) you might see some things as glossier than they really are. Each family has their good and bad days. While schedules, routines, and disciplines can make for an easier, smoother day to day life; they do not wipe out the hard parts of life. Determine what your parenting strengths and weaknesses are and capitalize on the positives and figure out how to minimize the negatives.


      Without creating something new to stress about, stand back and look at your life and see where it's lacking and what affect that is having on you and your family. If everything's fine, leave things as they are. But chances are, at any given moment, there's something slightly out of whack. When you see someone else doing something that you feel you'd like to do be doing or realize you are doing life out of balance, that is a good thing.


      The trick with the work/life balance is knowing and not stressing about that from time to time the pendulum will sway from one side to the other. With practice, you can better identify when things are getting too hectic or you are running in too short of emotional or physical energy. Sometimes, at bedtime when the day has done its number on you, you will have insight into a new need in yourself or your family. Don't stress about why you haven't seen it until now. Just be thankful that you did notice, and make time within the next day or two to figure out how to address it. The steps to balancing out your life are eliminating the stress of others' expectations and the less priority demands on your time; putting in place the true needs of your family and your true financial needs, and fitting into it all the reward of doing work that fulfills you.


      It's great when it all lines up and is in balance, but at any given time, things may be a little off or even a lot off. Each new stage of life: a move, increased job hours, personal household stress, family health conditions, and changing outside circumstances all play a part in how life goes. Even things like a dryer breaking down, a colleague going on holidays, or a child being diagnosed with a medical condition, can easily throw a wrench into the family gears. It is hard to not be thrown off with the stress.


      Less time in general might mean carving more out and deciding what it needs to be allocated for and setting those priorities on the calendar. Stressful living conditions may mean scaling down expectations and ensuring that all family members are being especially cared for. More family time and more planned fun may need to be included in the daily schedule. It might be a matter of seeing if a child really needs to be on another organized sports team or even if they do at all, even if the neighbour's child is in three activities. Perhaps your child just needs regular runs with a parent to get in healthy activity and parental time. Family bike rides or trips to the park and hosting neighbour kids for outside play will also do the trick. Job cutbacks may leave you with more time, but less money. Instead of feeling bad about what the lack in pay does not provide, think about what the increased time does.


      Remember it's your choice how you respond to a situation. Make a concerted effort to keep home a peaceful place to be and you can pat yourself on the back for that as well. Personal stress whether it's marital, workplace, or family stress; can have an impact for good or ill. It can prompt you to make healthy changes or to address deep seated issues or it can get pushed down deep, causing you to lash out in ways that do not deal with the problems in your life, but only exacerbate them. Feeling unfulfilled means sometimes changing jobs (well planned out moves will transition more smoothly than rushed ones), or shuffling your schedule to make time for more fulfilling activities.


Being constructive with the feelings of guilt that at first seem to attack you is a way to put yourself back in the driver's seat of your life. No one will be able to tell you how to do it best your way and you don't have to have it all figured out the first go round. Start experimenting with positive change today.<