Mom guilt. It’s a real thing.
There has to be dad guilt, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
I hope she will remember me sweating and making myself a better human so I could be a better mom and wife for my family
I can’t even begin to tell you all the flack I got when I started going to the gym after Hadley was born, and not even our gym, just the plain old YMCA.I started working out 4 days a week when Hadley was around 8 months old. My local YMCA had a daycare in it and I took advantage of that. I’d workout for an hour or so and then usually take Hadley swimming after or run around the gym and apparently that infuriated people.
As a single mom people couldn’t believe how much time I spent at the gym working out. People I barely knew talked about me behind my back, close friends and even family talked about how selfish I was to spend so much time at the gym.
I was losing weight and getting my body back after having my amazing daughter, and at the same time I was losing confidence in myself because to them I wasn’t being “the best mother” I could be.
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There is currently a pregnancy epidemic in our gym (I won’t be drinking the water for a while) and I think this is an important topic.
We have an amazing support system at Aerial Athletics (because we’re all crazy) and I’m so lucky to have fallen into this community filled with #womenpower.
However, after moving to Duluth and working out at CrossFit Aerial I got even more flack because I was at the gym even more often, there was no supervised daycare for Hadley, and it became our lives.
People must have forgotten that age old saying “it takes a village” while raising kids. My child is around an incredibly diverse group of people learning a variety of things. No matter race, gender, sexual orientation we all come and suffer together, high five, hug, learn and overcome.
She’s learning that fitness is fun and to love her body for what it can do and not what it looks like.
The mom guilt still resides. Sometimes when the homework doesn’t get done on time, the kids are sick and we are still at the gym, you will think of all the things you could be doing instead of being at the gym hauling your kid down there.
But one day I hope my daughter will remember me kicking ass at hang cleans and tossing the bar over my head with “all the wheels” on it.
I hope she will remember me sweating and making myself a better human so I could be a better mom and wife for my family…because if mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.
