What has ministered to you in your struggle with mom guilt?

I have found that there can be many roots to this experience of mom guilt. And so it's been helpful to identify what gives rise to it in my heart. And for me, one has been this lie that it's all on me. My kids' development, their flourishing, their every need, it all is on me. And so you could see how this could lead to mom guilt because mom guilt, it's often these feelings of failure. And if I believe the buck always stops with me, then anything that goes wrong is my fault. But God has ministered to me by reminding me, “It's not all on you, Lauren.” And how do I know that? Romans 12:4­–5 has been really helpful. I'll paraphrase. It says, in a body, each member has its own function, and that's just the same as it is in Christ's body. Each member is unique and each part is crucial to forming the whole.

And then it says, “We belong to each other.” And what that means is we can depend on one another. So if it's not all on me and I'm in fact one part of a greater whole, then what does that mean for me and my mothering? It means I can reach out for help, I can ask for advice. So I've started to get in the practice of this. And just this past week, we were facing questions of how to respond to some behavioral concerns with one of our kids. And my instinct in this was to keep it all to myself, to bear it on my own. But it was growth for me in this struggle when I reached out for help. I sought out people to share what was happening and ask for ideas and feedback. I belong to a body with vast gifts, different experiences than me, and wisdom beyond my own.

And I'm free and have permission to access these because it's God's provision for me and my kids. And this is freeing. It just gives permission and space to be in process as a mom to be figuring things out, because aren't we all? So this has been ministering to just kind of release these impossible expectations and replace it with an attitude that's more like, of course there will be times I need to reach out. I am going to reach the end of me. We all do. We will all need help. And needing help is not failure. It's human.