Parents feel guilty about work-life balance choices

“I have returned from work and now my husband is staying at home for a few more months with the baby. It’s only been a week but I’ve been daydreaming about missing work and not telling my family and just getting a hotel to sleep all day. Has anyone ever played hookie from the family and work for 8 hrs of pretending to be single with no kids? submitted by /u/Legitimate_Notice_23 [link] [comments]”

“Hi all! I usually get off of work at 6, but left at two for a doctor’s appointment. My doctor’s appointment wrapped up around 3 and I felt guilty about going home instead of back to my job. Just found it amazing how powerful the mind is! Has anyone else felt like this before? submitted by /u/rnbme [link] [comments]”

“Two things happened today that caused my baby distress and are both my fault. I was in target and my husband was playing around stepping on my heels so i tried to bump his heels with the cart but was going faster than i expected and when it hit it caused a jolt and loud noise and my 8 month old baby started screaming, she was fine after i calmed her so i don’t think she’s hurt but i think it scared her really bad. Then yesterday she got a decent diaper rash because she pooped during her nap but”

“Experiencing mom guilt - FTM, my husband and I are somewhat introverts, I’ve always been a homebody. My daughter is 5 months old and I’ve just been sort of in a rut. I haven’t gone on many walks or outings with her alone.. I live in Canada so now the cold weather is approaching and I didn’t utilize much of the warm weather. I don’t really know why to be honest, even a simple walk outside felt daunting to me. A lot of people have encouraged me to go join mom groups etc but it just feels like a lo”

“Is the money good? I’d say go for it. I don’t think you have to worry about not being there for your baby - one day per week being away from them will make you a more devoted and attentive parent when you are there! [re: Would you accept a 6-hour once a week commute?]”

“We are planning a longer trip to SE Asia with our 14 month child, because we have a window of opportunity now to do so and we live in a cold dark place in winter. But then I started to think. Even if we pick a safe destination, we make sure to vaccinate etc, there is always inherent risk when travelling. Is it selfish to put my child through that risk even if it is small and we take every precaution? I can't help but feel guilty knowing that my LO won't remember the experience anyway. So”

“Newbie parent with an 8 month old, are most families out and about during the week or just saving things to do for the weekend? We will maybe go out to eat 1x a week in general I love to cook anyway. We do daily morning walks, maybe 2-2.5 miles. On the weekends we are typically driving all over going to brunch, the beach, art walks, food festivals. Are families getting out during the week or is this an issue of being in a suburb? submitted by /u/Diskobrat [link] [comments]”

“Is anyone else in the "TV is on in the background" camp, or is it just me? I’m having a bit of mom guilt and need a reality check. It feels like every post I read is about parents strictly banning screens, and it’s making me feel like a bad mom. My son is almost 12 weeks old, and now that I’m back at work, my retired mom watches him. She’s an avid TV watcher and always has something on in the background (true crime, F1, police shows, Dancing with the Stars ). But she’s constantly playi”

“7 months pp. LO has recently started to prefer dad, which is great for their relationship and husband will be the stay at home parent once I go back to work. Right now we’re both home. I like sleeping at night, and if I have been able to fall asleep, I don’t mind waking up and feeding baby his bottle of formula and changing him before falling back asleep. My problem is that it’s very hard for me to fall asleep at night. During the day I fall asleep easily but I don’t like losing the day like tha”

“I work from home, which means I’m accessible to my 3 year old all day. God knows it’s fucked with my mental health. And now she’s recently started hitting me with the “play with me, mumma, please don’t work”. Idk man, I’m exhausted. Edit: I have a nanny. But we have a small house. There’s no separation of space. My workspace is our bedroom. submitted by /u/Siyrious [link] [comments]”

“I work out of town and my wife is a stay at home mom. She said when I come home her whole routine with our toddler gets thrown off and he acts different, more tantrums, not listening, etc. ny wife said it’s easier when I’m gone and it broke my heart. All I want is to be home with them and now she tells me this. Any other dads that work out of town gone through something similar? submitted by /u/Economy-Influence856 [link] [comments]”

“My spouse and I are getting a divorce. We have one child. I work full time while pursuing full time PhD to lessen the financial burden on my partner. Unfortunately, she feels abandoned and her needs not met. We are getting a divorce. I feel numb and having difficulty focusing on my dissertation. Just like the military, there is a real conversation that needs to happen with partners who come on this journey with us. It's a lonely world and very unforgiving no matter how hard you try. su”

“Is anyone else struggling with immense guilt lately? I've been back at work since baby was 6 weeks, LO is 15w now. I'm seeing someone for PPA. The last 2-3 weeks, I just cannot shake this overwhelming guilt. All I think about is how he spends most of his day in the care of someone else. I trust them, but I can't help but fear he's losing opportunity to grow and develop. Are they playing with him correctly? Are they holding him enough? Are they allowing him to nap enough? etc. I k”

“I am a FTM to a 4 month old. Husband works, I’m still on maternity leave. I love my lil guy so much! But.. Does anyone else have this looming anxiety and feeling like they’re not doing enough when their baby is awake? I feel incredibly guilty whenever I plop him into his bouncer to do things for myself like shower, eat, fold laundry, etc. even though he’s perfectly content to hold a toy and watch me. I feel incredibly guilty setting him on his playmat while I make a coffee, for example. Or setti”

submitted by /u/mamaWesttoEast [link] [comments]

“I’m curious if anyone else has struggled with this, because I’m starting to feel a little weak for even admitting it. I work a rotating schedule where I’m on for 2 days and then off for 4. My partner works 5 days a week, Monday–Friday, with weekends off. Our LO is 13 months old. I absolutely love spending time with my baby, and I’m grateful that my schedule gives me so much time with them. But I’m really struggling with the mental load of being on baby duty for essentially all 4 of my days off.”

“Hi all, I’ve been a working mom since the start, but now my son is in kindergarten and I feel so guilty about how long his day is. He started before school care at 7:00 am and I get him from after school care at 5:00 pm. When he was in day care he was in one place all the time so I guess I never noticed how long it was. Now he goes to care-goes to school- goes back to care until 5 and when we get home it’s dinner, bath, bedtime. Sometimes my husband will get him from care early when he gets off”

“I have a toddler. I’m a full-time working mom. My husband works long hours and doesn’t get Saturday off, so I am the primary caregiver except for Sundays 🫠 I recognize that it’s not fair and it’s not 50:50 workload between my husband and I. Sometimes I want to complain. Sometimes I’m overloaded. Sometimes I’m upset. It’s hard! I used to read a lot of working moms’ posts complaining about inequality in caregiving. I couldn’t agree more and felt seen. However I recently realized that searching fo”

“I know I shouldn't feel guilt for working and providing for my family, but damn it, I do. I work full time, 45 min commute. That means I'm gone for 9.5 hours a day. Little dude goes to bed at 6pm and gets up at 6am. This leaves me with 2 fucking hours a day with my son. That's whack, man. I love our morning routine and making breakfast for him. I love our bedtime routine, eating dinner, taking a lil bath, reading a story; but I feel like I'm missing him growing up and it's ki”

“My husband is self employed but rotates in office days with his business partner. 2 days on, 2 days off, and alternating 3 day weekends. And his hours aren't that long either (11- 5ish) I think hes planning to take 1- 2 weeks off, but we have extra support from his parents who live nearby and are very eager to cook and help with the baby so I wouldn't be alone. Just trying to think ahead as we are first time parent's submitted by /u/girlprincce [link] [comments]”

“I just had my second and am on maternity leave. Have a 3yo. I’m exhausted trying to juggle 2 kids and meals and breastfeeding and all that. Add actual work into the mix, even with childcare, I can’t imagine how I can make this work. Even on leave I’m feeling like I don’t get to spend enough time with the 2 kids. Am I doing enough for the kids? Those of you with older kids, did being so busy affect your kids / bond in any way. How do I sustain all this? I know it’s going to be hard for a few year”

“I wfh everyday and start work at 8:00. Our son’s daycare is ~13-15 minutes from our home and we try to leave the house at 7:30 (hardly ever happens lol). It’s always a super tight window and I’m almost always a few minutes late logging into work. My husband has a commute of 50 minutes and has to be there at 9:00 so most days it just makes sense that I take our son to daycare in the mornings. However, every so often (maybe once or twice a week) my husband will wfh. And he rarely, if ever, offers”

“I need to know, from a man's pov, if im being unfair? My husband works alot, 6 days a week (sometimes 7) 8-12 hour shifts. 1 hrs commute there and back. Today we were invited to a church function, bbq, bouce house and extended family gathering. He didnt want to go. He wanted to go to work after church was done. That pop-in to work took 20 minutes. He thought attending this bbq would take away from him getting into work. We went home after his quick job was finished. Ive been extremely upset”

“We are 4.5 mo out from bringing home baby #2 and I am having feelings that if we don’t have baby #3 I’m some how missing out. I would say 80% of our parenting friend group have 3+ kids. I HATE being pregnant and am not a fan of the ages 0-1, which is enough to feel done/our family is complete. But our parenting friends keep saying “oh you’re still in the thick of it. You can’t decide if you’re done or not yet”. Like yes, but no?? Idk has anyone else felt DONE, but also FOMO?? submitted by”

“Hello, wanted to get some advice/perspective for any working mothers who have to spend weekdays away from their family due to having a job in a major city while living 2+ hours from said city. Just a note: I have the luxury of staying with family in this major city, so no additional rent is taken from my end and it would actually be extremely costly to go home everyday mentally, physically, and financially (4+ hours commute daily). Just wanting to see if anyone else here has done this. Job marke”

“I have been working full time on site in the past 2 years. I went back to work full time when my LO was 8 months. I work 10 hours shift and with a long commute. My spouse and I both work full time in healthcare, with my spouse works every other weekends. Solo parenting is pretty often in our household on those days. My spouse takes care of most house chores, like taking care of the house, laundry, washing dishes etc. I take my LO to run errands, library or local community parks on my day off, or”

“Is that weird? We both have newborns and she’s always been more lax than I am, I only just met her three months ago. she hires people off Facebook to babysit and I can understand how important it is to get out and feel like yourself again. She asked me if I would babysit for her and my baby was a lot at the time (two newborns!?) and I don’t feel comfortable babysitting so said no and explained why and she asked me if my husband would do it??? Just felt it was a bit strange. She only has met my h”

“I work long hours and don’t see my baby for long after I come back home. I feel like she’s bonded with my partner much more than me which is understandable. I’m grateful she has her to bond with and feel safe with but it makes me sad sometimes that I can’t have the same relationship with her. How do I bond with her when I have 1h-1h30 max a day with her? submitted by /u/Caffeinated_sentient [link] [comments]”

“Our daughter is 11 months old and I just started going back to work 3 days per week. My partner has some pat leave left so he’s off for the month while we transition baby to a daycare. My partner is a night owl and thus wakes up pretty late, so it’s pretty much always been me who gets up with baby in the morning, changes her, feeds her, etc, even on weekends, unless I explicitly say the night before that I want him to take her in the morning so I can rest. When I went back to work my husband bec”

“My boyfriend and I have an 8 month old daughter and we’re moving into our first apartment together mid September. For a while, the understanding between us was that I would be a SAHM while our daughter was little, and he would work and financially support us. He had told me I could stay home with her and take care of her while he worked. Now that we’re actually getting ready to move, he’s telling me that I need to get a job to help with rent. He says “he never meant that I could be a SAHM foreve”

“Before I had kids my work was my main passion outside of friends, family, and my relationship. I am good at my job have successfully been promoted to manager level, which is something I worked very hard for. Long term, I want to have a career and do cool things professionally. We have significant savings and both have stable, well paying jobs. We could also afford to live off of his salary and our savings for several years without issues. After my first was born I wanted to stay home with him an”

“Just need to vent to people who get it because a conversation with a college friend this weekend has been driving me nuts. We got close over the last year because our kids are the same age (toddlers, around 17 months). Since we're both working moms, I thought we were in the same boat. But talking to her lately just feels like getting judged for not being crunchy enough First, we were talking about taking toddlers to restaurants. I mentioned that I don't pack a full meal from home when we”

“To all my stay at home dad's, or other dads that may have just had the experience, do you ever feel guilty being a stay-at-home dad? I was raised that money is super important and to keep everything as pristine as possible and I know I have a bit of a complex because of it. So, I decided a long time ago I wanted to be a provider for my family and the rest can fall work wants to. Lost my job just before finding out the wife was pregnant! My kiddo is now nearing one year old and I'm still”

“My partner and I were doing ok with us working two jobs. We have a 4 year old and a 6 month old we don’t do daycare so we aligned our schedules for this. I worked two days and he worked 5. However his mental health was deteriorating he was working 13-15hrs a day and literally for a year didn’t have a day off. So I encouraged him when he’s ready to leave I’ll pick up the full time hours and he can stay home with the kiddos. But one day when we came to get him from work he said today is my last da”

“Situation background: My husband has a good job with good benefits and pay. He doesn’t typically work excessive hours, weekends, or holidays. However, he isn’t happy doing his line of work and decided to go back to school. For one thing, there are no student loans for what he is going to school for, so we have to pay out of pocket. He is still working full time and doing school and studying in the evenings and weekends. Eventually, he will have to quit his job to get experience. During that time”

“We have a five week old and I will be retuning to work next week, which is already giving me much distress. I work a high stress job with long, unpredictable hours. My husband will be a stay at home dad for at least the first year. During this transition, my closest friend who I view as a sister will be staying with us for a week and helping. My parents strictly oppose this and are telling me that doing this is a mistake and not acceptable. They think that potential harm can come to the baby or”

“I (mother) am thinking about doing a work trip for 1 week while baby is 4 months old. Partner would stay back and watch baby. On one hand, it’s a good career opportunity. On the other, baby is exclusively breast fed, so I’d have to pump (and likely dump as freezing and bringing it back over a few flights seems almost impossible). I am feeling guilty as baby’s food source and wondering if I’m being selfish. What would you do in my shoes? Go on the trip or stay home? submitted by /u/Ev”

“Our relationships not great right now We clash on parenting I’ve had a rough time pp because he makes false promises like changin work hours but doesn’t And it simply means starting earlier to finish earlier which he had control over otherwise his out of the house from 10-7:30 comes home when my toddler and baby are over tired we don’t get dinner as a family and in the morning his a slob who just wants to rest on the couch while toddler is bored and upset and wakes me up anyway. My baby and todd”

“I’ve been struggling with this lately. But still, I wanna share with you guys that I’m so excited to become a mom, but I also care a lot about my career. I like what I do, I’m proud of what I’ve built, and I don’t want pregnancy to make that part of my identity disappear suddenly. But sometimes I feel guilty even thinking about work and also planning things for maternity leave then catch myself thinking, “Shouldn’t I be focusing on the baby instead?” I know logically that I can be excited about”

“I've been feeling extra guilty about a few things lately. Being freshly postpartum with our second has made me feel extreme guilt over not spending as much time with my first- and how our schedule looks. But then I think of the reasons behind these things, and they seem justifiable? Am I just trying to justify being a bad parent? My sons (3.5) sleep schedule. 11pm-10am, no naps. He dropped his nap himself about a year ago. My husband works long hours -8am to 8/9pm, 6 days a week. My son used”

“I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt today and stumbled across this sub so hoping some of you wonderful women can help ease some of this or give me advice. My kid is 3 and completely incredible. Been in nursery since 1 and thriving. Single mum since my kid was a newborn so nursery was the right path for us. Two days a week are spent at dads, the rest is nursery then home with me. The guilt is I don’t feel like I do anything to actually parent. I feel like all I do is nursery pickup then chill with m”

“Last night I reminded my husband (for the third time) that he needs to take 3 days off of work next week. When he responded with surprise and a "I didn't know I needed to plan to do that" (FOR THE THIRD FUCKING TIME) I snapped. So today I built a spreadsheet of all the household management tasks we both do, and who is currently doing them. He does 16 tasks to my 25. I was confused, honestly, because that didn't reflect the burnout I'm currently experiencing. So I assigned e”

“How are working parents taking time for themselves during the weeknights? I don’t mean this as a judgement, because I WANT to be able to do things for myself during the week without guilt. My husband and I both work full time, normal business hours. So we see our kids for a short time in the morning before daycare/work, and a few evening hours before bed. I feel so guilty using any of those hours to go to the gym or do any other socializing. I already have such limited time with my kids, I feel”

“I’ve been feeling really guilty lately. Since having my daughter, I feel like I’ve been slacking as a mom to my oldest, and it’s been eating at me. He’s 5 and he is a LOT right now. He talks back, tests every boundary imaginable, throws fits, and has definitely become what people would call “a handful.” But even so, he is the sweetest soul I’ve ever met, so kind, imaginative, loving, and independent. I adore this kid. I love him so, so much and would do anything for him. I just feel like my fuse”

“I have a question for you dads. If you have to take a day off because you’re sick, does your partner expect you to do all the same parental/house stuff you would normally do if you were home on a weekend? I’ve been out of it for two days now with what the doctor suspects is one of the Influenzas, and my wife just seems super pissed off at me for being sick and resting in bed. When my wife is sick, she gets tucked into bed and the full service - no parental responsibility, no household responsibi”

“We just had our first kid and he's almost 2 months old. I have been in a debate with myself about what to do with my career. Currently have a job that requires travel during the work week a couple times a month. Pay is decent and I am the primary income for the family. I just hate the idea of missing so much of my kids life. An opportunity within my company has opened up but would require us to move to a new state away from our family but the new job would be a good career step up and have v”

“My partner is working away a few days this week and he’s asked to play a sport he used to play regularly pre baby this weekend. I have said yes because we had a pre agreement he could go this weekend but work plans had changed. I don’t get it. If I’d spent several days from our kid and then made an active choice to choose to stay on the weekend I’d feel guilty af. I wouldn’t do it. I do need to admit here I have a lot fewer friends than him and my hobbies are not social so I don’t experience his”