Mom Guilt Made Me (NOT) Do It

After having my third child, I came to realize that although my emotions were all over the place with each birth, there was one emotion I felt immediately with all three of my boys: mom guilt. Is that an emotion? Is it from hormones? Is it just natural? I don’t know what mom guilt is exactly but I do know that it starts from the moment those children are born and I’m assuming it lasts until I take my last breath. Knowing me, I’ll probably feel mom guilt in the afterlife.

Mom guilt makes us do things that we would typically never do, but it also makes us NOT do things that we typically would do.

I have so many examples of this in my own personal journey of motherhood, but one in particular always stands out when I hear any discussion or conversation about mom guilt. In 2012, I was in the heat of a divorce. It wasn’t an ugly divorce at the time. It was emotional and difficult, and I was coming out of a year of physical illness caused by the stress of my decision to divorce my high school sweetheart and husband of over 10 years.

Talk about guilt.

Wife guilt, mom guilt, Christian guilt, and daughter guilt all rolled into one. My only son at the time was starting kindergarten and I had flipped his world upside down. I tried to flip it in the most gentle and loving way possible while continuing to assure him that his family would always be there for him, but divorce is a storm and it never moves through without leaving some kind of destruction in its path.

When I remarried in 2015, you would assume that the mom guilt I felt ended there, but it’s actually where a new facet of it began. You see, as a good Southern woman, you get married and take your husband’s name. It’s been done for generations and I did it once before so obviously the next step was to change my last name. As the months went by and I didn’t change my name, I was surprised by the assumptions people made about me keeping my ex-husband’s name. I heard the “Ohhhhh she just can’t let go” from time to time; that one never really bothered me. The more frequent assumption though always made me feel uncomfortable because I knew in my heart it wasn’t true. People (mostly women) would give me the “Yeah girl” look with the head nod and I knew exactly what they were thinking. They were thinking I was a strong and independent woman who didn’t need a man or his name to define her. They saw strength in me, but deep in my heart I knew it was weakness.

So why didn’t I want to change my name?

Two words: mom guilt. When I looked at my son three years after the divorce I still saw this little heart that I had hurt. My only child who, because of me, now had two houses, two different schedules and two different sets of rules. And although he had adjusted well, I was still the one who was feeling forever mom guilted by the choice I had made years prior. So how could I just take my last name — HIS last name — and toss it to the curb? I couldn’t. To me it was like tossing away the fact that I was his mother. I wasn’t trying to pretend the divorce didn’t happen, but this change, that seemed so simple to others, had some kind of hold on me. I loved my new husband so much and he, of course, wanted me to take his name. Once I explained this mom guilt phenomenon to him, he respected my feelings more than the customary action of changing my name. Of course, his selfless response made me feel guilty all over again! Mom guilt: 1,000, Amanda-0.

As it stands nine years later, I still haven’t changed my last name and I’m sure people still wonder about our family and why my husband and I have different last names. I’m now the proud mom of two additional boys with my husband and their last names are obviously different from mine. We share that openly with our four-year-old (the six-month-old doesn’t care yet) and almost treat it like a friendly family competition. Who is going to win? The Mallerys or the Voorhees? It’s no longer something I stress over or feel guilty about. It’s just a piece of our family puzzle.

Will I change my last name in the future? Perhaps. I have a wonderful relationship with my oldest son and have learned over the years that actions speak way louder than my words or my last name. He knows I love him because I show up for him every single day. My love for him and my role as his mother is no longer defined by my last name. It really never was.

Even though I still feel mom guilt over other things, I no longer focus on the assumptions people make about my last name. In fact, perhaps I did take on one of those assumptions. Maybe I have become that strong independent woman who doesn’t need a name to define her.

So for that, mom guilt, I thank you. You’ve always been there for me and I have a feeling you always will be.