Is it Guilt or is it Grief?

This week's post is a little different. It's not our usual letter, more of an essay. It's also a little longer than usual so get comfy!

Our whānau - all content despite, and probably because I wasn't there for every moment!

A wonderful woman posted recently on LinkedIn the guilt she felt when she was working that she wasn’t spending enough time with her kids and then while she is with her kids feeling guilty that she isn’t crushing it at work.

I hope this post is a hug to her from someone who has journeyed through this process and to all the other woman feeling this way. It’s something I would have loved to have had. It would have saved me some very bad life decisions.

Guilt is socially acceptable.

The world I move in still defaults to the woman as the carer and the man as the provider. Personally, my husband and I decided 25 years ago when our first child was born that we wanted one of us to stay home full time (cheaper times back then – houses were only in the low $100,000). My husband stayed at home with the kids (all three) and I returned to work. Purely a financial decision based on earning capacity. Despite this, our children were still so influenced by the systems we move in that their default (woman cares, man works) remains the same even though their lived experience doesn’t reflect that. I mean how strong is this system that can cancel out actual reality?

When we are experiencing guilt, we are remaining within this system. We keep the conflict as ours. In return the system tells us that this is the way it is, congratulations you are complying and showing that you care and that you are trying. Guilt is the response our social system has told us is appropriate. Guilt makes us believe we have a choice, that we have control and that ultimately this is our fault, therefore we can fix it. It’s not. We can’t.

When woman took to paid work, the moral expectation of care remained with woman.  We took on the additional responsibility of being a provider without any “system” redistribution of the responsibility to care. And the language of our system continually enforces this. You have a working mother, not a working father. You have a career woman, not a career man. How many times has a man been referred to as being on “babysitting duty” when it’s his own kids. Our everyday language, that we absorb before we even understand it, keeps the caring duties with the woman and the providing duties with the man.

The guilt I felt was what I was allowed, and even expected, to feel. "Well done young lady you are acting appropriately". But with the joy of hindsight and a few years of experience, I now understand that what I should have really been feeling was grief, and some ugly, please don’t bring that to this party, anger.

We can never be both things, an attentive carer and a focused worker, in the same moment. We can flow between both. Like dancing, you can waltz and breakdance but not at the same time. That doesn’t mean you can’t be wonderful at both in separate moments.

We need to let go of the guilt and that requires something horrendously freakn hard – its means acknowledging that some losses are unavoidable. And that just really punches you right in the guts.

I missed kids' sports events, school trips, end of year celebrations. Hell I even up and left through one of my daughter’s birthday dinners because a work emergency came up (it was when I did insolvency work and when you need to go you need to go). I didn’t really get to know their friends and I certainly never made any “playdate” groups with other parents. My wonderful husband would send me photos of him and the kids enjoying an ice cream on the beach smiling away on summer days.

Also, firsts are overrated. The system tells us they matter way more than they do. As I’ve written this, I’ve observed all the kids, now between 20 and 25 years of age, walk. Trust me it’s no longer a big deal. I couldn’t tell you if they made their first step in the weekend when I was there or whether I missed it. I couldn’t tell you if I was there the first time any of my children uttered a word, or if my husband just let me think I was. I know at the time it meant everything. Well, the system told me it meant everything. The second time they walk is just as exciting as the first. Please remember every moment is precious, whether it is a first or not.

How about we reframe things

I’m no longer prepared to go along with the system narrative. I don’t want to see another wonderful mother do the same. I don’t want the words “I should have” to be dressed in guilt. Instead, I want to acknowledge it as the grief it is. “I didn’t get to”, “Something mattered and I missed it”.  I understand that I need to make choices. I understand that I get to choose my hard. I know I can do hard things.

My grief includes all the lost moments with my children from when they were babies through to now. My grief includes how my career was handbraked by the virtue of having children (one boss actually uttered the words “I didn’t realise you would want a promotion” – apparently it was very clear for the guy who got it. And to be clear I had actually written “promotion” in my yearly goals that they made us do!). My grief includes all the missed opportunities for authentic and caring friendships through shared experiences, the ones that are forged through your children.  And as I recognised the grief I was carrying, I began to feel something else. It went something like this.

Screw you [system], you made me call it guilt when what I was really feeling was grief and now anger.

Anger is not something nice girls should do. The system will tell us anger means she is a crazy b*&^h.  Guilt the system can handle, anger means I’m being difficult. But there was something important that transformed for me through the anger and that was clarity. Clarity didn’t mean things got easier. Having kids and working is hard. But everything worthwhile in life doesn't come without effort. There are no shortcuts. What I am now experiencing on the other side makes all those horrible, self-deprecating days worth it.

Clarity means the “I should be here, but then I should be there, but then I should be here” on repeat stops going around my head in circles. I make my decision, understand that decision may come with grief and do it anyway because that is the hard I have chosen.

Guilt told me I had failed. I hadn’t. Grief tells me I care deeply about something. Absolutely.

Guilt asked me to tell it what I had done wrong. Grief asked me to show it what mattered, that thing that I couldn’t fully do.

Guilt required me to adhere to implied rules and was vague. It ignored the effort that I put in. Grief is specific. It recognised the achievements I was making. Guilt told me “I missed out” while grief told me “I missed putting the kids to bed every night this week because I just secured a key client”.

While each of our journeys are unique, there is value in offering one another permission to rename guilt as grief. Guilt exacts a heavy toll. Anxiety before a decision is even made, burnout from carrying incompatible expectations, decision paralysis, diminished satisfaction across every domain of life, and the persistent sense of never being enough.

Grief offers a different, and in my opinion, more honest perspective. It allows us to acknowledge that time is finite and that tradeoffs are real. It makes space to understand the choices we make without self-abuse and to honour what matters to us, even when we cannot hold everything at once. In doing so, grief does not dimmish our care or commitment. It lets us have clarity, compassion and provides us agency.

For me letting go of guilt allowed the grief to tell the truer story of what I value in a finite life, creating space for a kinder and clearer way forward. I wonder, if grief is acknowledged, what it might whisper to you?