Mom's Guilt

 I had never taken bed rest for such a long time. But sometimes the body needs rest. Illness always indicates something, and it should be given attention. This was my time to pause. I hope that I, and everyone else, will fight all the battles they have been battling and win them.

I have always wondered about a feeling called mother’s guilt. I don’t think one becomes a mother only after giving birth to a child. Even a five-year-old can be a mother to her two-year-old sister. It is about the traits one has.

One of those traits is purity—in heart and in action. We often say that a mother skips her meal to feed her child and never asks for anything in return. Of course, this idea is wrong, and nowadays, in many situations, we are actually parenting our parents.

I have seen mothers suffer with guilt.

When they stop feeding, they feel guilty.

When they go to work leaving their child, they feel guilty.

When they can’t do something their child asks for, they feel guilty.

When they feel their love isn’t enough, they feel guilty.

Still, I am happy that despite all this, women today are trying to balance these feelings while working on their own lives too.

Since I have not been feeling well for a week, I often see my mother looking sad. The hardest part was when she blamed herself for feeding me keera rice, thinking it might have triggered my vomiting. When I saw her reacting like that, I wondered how pure a heart must be to blame itself so easily.

I made sure she knew it wasn’t her fault. It was my health that did not cooperate.

I also noticed my neighbour aunty who felt guilty because her small child couldn’t really lie on her, as she is pregnant. These small feelings show how deeply mothers are attached to their children and how dependent they feel on them.

No matter how much they become aware that they are individuals too, and that it is okay to feel this way, I think somewhere, this guilt never completely goes away.