Guilt

Contributing Factors to Maternal Guilt

In 1978, Heffner noted that, among other factors, the desire for perfection, the nature of consumerism, and the proliferation of “expert” advice was contributing to frustrations within motherhood. Guilt was noted as the most prominent outcome. Heffner observed that women felt increasingly bad about themselves as mothers, concluding, “The answer is that women are vulnerable to these attacks because feeling guilty is a normal condition of motherhood… The functions of mothering induce intense emotional reactions which lead inevitably to guilt.” Rankin, while researching employed mothers, found maternal guilt to be one of the eight major stresses reported by mothers. Also, for inner-city women, among the several barriers to their own treatment for substance abuse were lingering and unresolved feelings of guilt and shame in the maternal role, according to Ehrmin.

Ehrensaft found maternal guilt to be related to societal expectations of good mothering. While acknowledging the subtle shifts in child rearing, specifically the increased involvement of fathers, Ehrensaft pointed out that it is the mother who remained “in charge,” carrying a greater “mental load” of parenting. She added that for women who leave the home to work, it is difficult for them to relinquish the child rearing to someone else. Ehrensaft argued that women in these egalitarian, shared-parenting situations give up power, “only to find societally induced guilt feelings for not being a ‘real’ mother, and maybe even for being a ‘bad’ mother.”

Hays described the dynamics of the “guilt gap,” in which mothers, as compared to fathers, experience vastly higher levels of guilt—even when both are equally responsible for childcare. Further, Douglas and Michaels not only described women as guilt ridden, but also contend that this guilt co-occurs with and is exacerbated by feelings of inferiority, exhaustion, confusion, fearfulness, and anger.

One of the few works to specifically address maternal guilt and motherhood asked women to describe the experience of and the meanings associated with maternal guilt. In an unstructured interview format, subjects were asked to talk about guilt and mothering. Many of the qualitative themes that Seagram and Daniluk developed for their discussion reflected the cultural expectations of mothering so prolific in other works. For example, Seagram and Daniluk described their respondent's sense of responsibility as “an unrelenting and total sense of responsibility for the health, welfare, and development of their children.” The women reported feelings of ultimate responsibility for all aspects of a child's needs. This sense of total responsibility captures what Hays called “intensive mothering.” Similarly, the sense of inadequacy reported by the respondents reinforce Douglas and Michael's assertions concerning the impact of the media on a woman's sense of self as a mother. Comparing themselves to women on television, or the information in parenting books, these mothers' feelings of inadequacy have led them to believe that they have failed in the quest for good mothering.

...