Following the conversation with Dan Reed from the Career Dad Show this week I have been thinking about my journey as dad and have reflected upon my experience over the last 10 years of developing a therapeutic and coaching practice.

You can listen to the show here:

Following the conversation with Dan Reed from the Career Dad Show this week I have been thinking about my journey as dad and have reflected upon my experience over the last 15 years

The idea of parental guilt came out strongly in the episode with Dan and it is something that both Esther, my wife, and I have felt strongly at times. 

Parental guilt comes from the belief that you should be with your child at all times and that a career or your own activities and self-care away from them is something to be avoided at all costs.  When we then do any of these things we feel that it was an unnecessary indulgence and somehow detrimental to the child.  

Because the belief that women should be the primary carers for the children, Mums have been feeling this guilt for years. Yet as more and more dads start to think about their roles as dads in the workplace they are now experiencing this same parental guilt. I suspect it was always there for many men but the societal expectations made even opening this conversation up at any level almost impossible to do. In the same way that it was impossible for many women to have a conversation around being a working mum let alone having a career.

People work for all sorts of reasons, some because they want to as their job helps define who they are. Some have something to put out in the world and have to do it. Many simply have no choice because of financial reasons. The reality is that there is probably a combination of all of the above.

Both Esther and I approached parenthood from a standpoint of co-parenting as much as was possible. Taking jobs and care roles that needed doing as non gender roles and simply doing them. Fitting our own passions and work around the needs of each other and the children. 

Right now it looks different than ever before with Esther working full time and me working my hours around needs of children. Neither of us looses out developing our career and the children for the most part have access to us when they need it. 

They are teenagers now but do have individual and unique needs from us which we try and meet as best we can but at times we both experience that pang of guilt if we are unavailable. 

But this isn’t a gender experience, this is for anyone who has a parenting role regardless of gender, sexuality, or identity. Guilt around parenting is there if you allow it to be. 

We do, however, tend to keep this guilt hidden. Fearful of judgement that you are not good enough in your work or as a parent. We then compare ourselves with the world around us. This used to be the few handfuls of people we had in our family and friendship circle but now we literally have the world rot compare ourselves to. We don’t need to go into which version of themselves people share online. Even the ones that share the mess as well as the beautiful moments, still feel like they have more instagram worth mess than I do!

So what can we do?

Accept that trade-offs are inevitable

When you decide that you are going down the route of parenting and career, whatever that looks like there will be trade-offs. This will involve sacrifice and compromise in one form or another. Reconciling these with the why you are making them in the first place is really important. Again, don’t attempt to do both half distracted, do what’s in front of you and do it well

Drop Shoulds and Musts

Should and musts tend to be a combination of childhood experiences mixed with societies expectations and more often than not unspoken ‘rules’ we buy into without even realising it. 

Lower your bar to good enough

With social media, the ‘shoulds’ we carry and the self imposed expectations we see around us, the bar on what it means to be a ‘great parent’ has been gradually moving up. I honestly think our bars are set so high that whatever we do we will always fall short. I think we need to accept that good enough is good enough for our children. We carry so much pressure already so this simple thought can be enough to allow us to enjoy both our work and time with children. Part of that is realising that we need to give up the elusive quest to be a super-parent who does everything ‘just right’ and live without being anxious, guilt-ridden and exhausted.

Ultimately you need to ask yourself; what does the best version of me look like for my children? This is a really important question worth asking and I suspect that at some level it is someone who has their own dreams, drive and passions.

We model behaviour to our children and if we can show that we can be good to ourselves and enable our partners to do the same, we help our children recognise an important lesson in themselves. 

Of course we do all this so that when we return to our children we can give them our best. We could, however, be with our children 24/7 and yet never fully present with them. I have worked with so many children that complain to me that their parents are on their mobile phones so much who, in turn, equally complain that their children are on devices. It effects us all so how we show up as a parent is as important as how we show up to our jobs. 

Most important though is that you free yourself up from external pressure to be who others think you should be. Go your own way, make your own path and determine how you want to work and parent. Bring the best you have to what you do and letting go of the messages you think are out there about what your role should be and what it must look like.

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