Deconstructing "mom guilt"
Unpopular opinion: Summer is my least favorite season and it’s not because of the sweltering heat and humidity (although that certainly doesn’t help). It’s because I dread the lack of structure, managing the logistics of day camp, and—most of all—the persistent feeling of guilt that I’m doing it all wrong. Our summer weekdays don’t involve lazy beach days. Instead, we’re scrambling to whatever camp we selected back in February that my kids have now decided they inevitably hate.
Now listen, I know that if we were home all summer, the kids would be bored and I would go crazy. I know this, because my own mom didn’t work outside the home and my sister and I spent the summer on the couch watching Salute Your Shorts, grumbling about how much more fun those kids were having at camp. The grass is always greener.
Mom guilt
The term “mom guilt” can sound so trite. And yet, it captures something real—something that feels deeply familiar to many mothers. My husband, for example, has never once questioned whether he should skip a day at the office to plan an afternoon of crafts, snacks, and sensory-rich outings designed to spark joy and cognitive development. But I’m a decade into this whole momming gig and, at time, I still find myself asking: Am I doing enough? Am I present enough? Am I falling short?
“Mom guilt” has become such a common phrase that we rarely stop to ask what it really means, where it comes from, or why it’s so persistent. It describes the internalized sense many mothers carry that we are somehow failing. That we’re letting someone down (usually our children), even when we’re trying our absolute best.
Despite what American culture often suggests, that guilt isn’t just about personal choices or psychological sensitivity. It reflects something larger: deeply rooted cultural messages, historical expectations, and systemic gaps that shape how mothers live—and what they’re expected to feel. I want to reframe how we think about mom guilt: not as a flaw in individual mothers, but as a symptom of a society that demands too much, provides too little, and then expects women to blame themselves for the gap.
Psychologically, guilt is typically seen as a moral emotion—it arises when we believe we’ve done something wrong and want to make it right. But mom guilt rarely stems from a specific misstep. Instead, it shows up as a vague, persistent sense of inadequacy. It lingers. It’s hard to name and even harder to shake.
Because it’s so diffuse and constant, mom guilt may not be just a personal emotion. It functions more like what cultural theorist Raymond Williams called a “structure of feeling”—not an explicit belief or written rule, but a shared emotional current shaped by a particular cultural and historical moment. In this view, mom guilt isn’t simply something mothers feel; it’s something they’ve been conditioned to feel. And that conditioning helps keep broader social norms in place—norms that ask women to do more, ask for less, and feel personally responsible for it all.
Historical foundations: Constructing the "good mother"
To understand mom guilt, we have to look at what it means to be a “good mother” in American culture—and how that definition came to be.
In the decades following World War II, the ideal mother in the U.S. was imagined as a full-time homemaker: white, middle-class, married to a breadwinner husband, and devoted entirely to her children. This image was widely promoted in media and reinforced by public policy, even though it didn’t reflect the realities of many American families—especially those who were poor, single, or non-white.
This version of motherhood placed huge value on self-sacrifice. A good mother was supposed to put her children’s needs ahead of her own at all times. Her work was invisible but essential. Her reward? The moral authority of being devoted.
By the 1990s and early 2000s, as more mothers entered the workforce, a new model of motherhood emerged: what sociologist Sharon Hays called intensive mothering. This version expected mothers to:
Be constantly emotionally attuned to their children,
Spend significant time managing every aspect of their development,
Follow expert advice on parenting decisions,
And often sacrifice their own needs, careers, or interests to do it all.
This model wasn’t necessarily designed with working mothers in mind—but it still became the standard. The result? Many mothers found themselves caught between competing demands: be fully present at home and fully successful at work. Be selfless and ambitious. Always available and yet fully independent.
Mom guilt shows up not because mothers are failing, but because the standards they’re trying to meet are impossible.
The role of culture and policy
These unrealistic expectations don’t operate in a vacuum. They’re made worse by how little institutional support American families actually receive (see here).
The list of failures is familiar: Unlike many other wealthy countries, the United States does not guarantee paid parental leave. Childcare is often unaffordable and hard to access. Workplaces are still largely structured around the assumption that one parent (usually the mother) is available to manage the home.
Yet when mothers feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or like they’re falling short, the message they receive is often: Try harder. Be more organized. Practice gratitude. Find balance.
This reflects a broader cultural belief that individuals are responsible for solving problems that are, in reality, systemic. In academic terms, this is the logic of neoliberalism: the idea that success and failure rest on personal choices, and that institutions are not responsible for your well-being. In this framework, when motherhood feels unsustainable, the solution offered is self-help—not policy change.
Mom guilt, then, becomes a way mothers internalize responsibility for conditions they didn’t create. It turns structural failures into private emotions.
Gender, emotions, and unequal expectations
It’s also important to recognize that “mom guilt” is deeply gendered. Fathers, especially in heterosexual partnerships, are rarely expected to feel guilty for working long hours, taking personal time, or needing rest. When they participate in caregiving, they’re often praised for “helping.” Mothers, by contrast, are expected to organize their lives and emotions around their children’s needs.
This unequal emotional burden is part of what sociologist Arlie Hochschild called emotional labor: the often invisible work of managing feelings (your own and others’) to maintain relationships and smooth over conflict. In families, mothers are typically expected to carry this load. When they fall short, they feel guilt—not just about actions, but about emotional availability, patience, and even joy.
This isn’t to say guilt is inherently bad. Guilt can be a useful moral signal when it points to a real misstep. But mom guilt often arises not from clear wrongdoing, but from internalized cultural expectations about what “good mothers” are supposed to be, and from the mismatch between those ideals and lived reality.
So, what do we do?
Rather than asking mothers to simply “get over” their guilt, it may be more helpful to ask what the guilt is doing. What message is it sending? Who benefits from mothers feeling this way?
One way to think about it is this: mom guilt is not just a feeling—it’s a social mechanism. It keeps women striving to meet unrealistic ideals. It discourages them from asking for better support. And it keeps attention focused inward (on whether they’re doing enough) rather than outward (on whether society is doing enough for them).
The danger isn’t just that mom guilt is unpleasant, it’s that it hides the real problem. When mothers feel they are personally failing, they’re less likely to question the larger systems that are failing them.
Like almost everything I write about, there’s no quick fix. But there is power in naming it—clearly and critically. Instead of treating it as a private emotional problem, we can treat it as cultural information. When guilt arises, we can ask:
Where did this “should” come from?
Whose expectations am I trying to meet?
What would I need—not just personally, but structurally—to feel less torn?
These questions won’t erase guilt, but they can loosen its grip. They can make space for solidarity, not just self-help. And they can help shift the conversation from one about individual coping to one about collective care.
Read
Can Millennial dads have it all? (Business Insider)
Let your kid climb that tree (The Atlantic gift link)
How to beat the afternoon slump (BBC Science Focus) TL;DR: Schedule the most low=effort tasks into the post-lunch dup period to around 3pm
Pregnancy is a minefield when you’re disabled (Mother Jones)
