Sometimes I Feel Guilty for Loving My Work

There are days when I am working and one of my children wants me.

And I feel that little pinch immediately.

Maybe I should stop.

Maybe they need me more.

Maybe I am missing something I won’t get back.

I go to their PTMs.

I make sure they eat.

I help with homework.

We talk.

I know their little stories.

I try to stay close enough to know when something is changing inside them.

And yet, there are days when my work takes my time.

A meeting runs longer.

Something I am building needs me.

A priority shifts.

And my children get the version of me that says,

“Not right now.”

Sometimes I feel guilty about that.

Not because they are neglected.

Because I know they could have had more of me.

And that is where it gets complicated.

Because I also feel proud.

I love what I am creating.

I love having something that is mine.

I love that my children see me working towards something that matters to me.

I want them to grow up knowing that a woman can love her family without making her entire existence about them.

That she can have ambition.

A calling.

A life.

That motherhood doesn’t have to be an either-or.

And yet, sometimes I wonder if I am paying for that belief with exhaustion.

Trying to be completely present with them.

Completely present in my work.

And feeling guilty whenever I am doing one while thinking about the other.

Maybe this is why motherhood can feel so relentless.

There is always a version of ourselves we think we should be giving.

More patient.

More available.

More attentive.

More involved.

And the moment we turn towards our own life, there is a small voice asking,

But what about your children?

I’ve started wondering where that voice came from.

Because sometimes it is mine.

Sometimes my children really do need me.

Sometimes I have missed something.

Sometimes I have been distracted when they were trying to tell me something.

I don’t want to turn every uncomfortable feeling into conditioning.

But sometimes, I wonder if I am carrying something much older.

The idea that a good mother is supposed to be available in a way no human being can actually sustain.

That her children’s needs are real, while her own become negotiable.

That a father’s work is part of his identity, but a mother’s work has to constantly prove that it isn’t taking anything away from her children.

And perhaps that is the part I am trying to unlearn.

Not caring less.

Not working more.

But questioning the equation:

If I choose myself sometimes, am I choosing my children less?

Because I don’t want my children to learn that equation from me.

I don’t want my kids to grow up believing that becoming a mother means putting every ambition on trial.

And I don’t want my boys to grow up thinking that the women he loves should have to disappear into caregiving to prove they love him.

I want them to see something messier.

A mother who sometimes says no.

A mother who sometimes gets distracted.

A mother who sometimes chooses her work.

A mother who sometimes realises she got it wrong and comes back.

A mother who loves them enormously and still has a life that doesn’t belong to them.

Maybe that is not having it all.

Maybe it is learning that love does not have to be measured by how much of yourself you give away.

This is something I find myself sitting with with mothers in my work too—the guilt, the expectations underneath it, and the quiet fear that if they stop over-giving, they will somehow become less loving.

And perhaps the question is not, “Am I a good enough mother?”

Maybe it is,

“Who taught me what a good mother is supposed to look like—and what parts of that definition do I actually want my children to inherit?”

I don’t know if I will ever stop feeling guilty.

But I am beginning to wonder if my children need a mother who gives them everything.

Or if they need to see a mother who teaches them, by the way she lives, that they can be deeply loved without becoming the whole of someone’s life.