GUEST BLOG: The Mommy Crisis

I'm so excited to have Jen Sencar from Momcafé Okanagan as our Guest Blogger today! This blog is hitting close to home for me as guess who's Maternity Leave is up in two months!!

The “Mommy Crisis”

I was out at one of my first networking functions in years and I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. We got to talking about work, family and balancing it all, and my friend admitted to me that she didn’t simply identify herself as a mom. Her love for her daughter was obvious but it was more about her identity… who she was. While she was a mother, she was also a career woman. She needed to have that adult stimulation in her life. At about 8 months into her maternity leave she was starting to feel depressed, so much so that she went to her doctor thinking that it maybe she developed post partum depression. The doctor said no and she began talking to all of her mommy friends about how she was feeling. To her surprise they all said “Don’t worry about it. It is just the Mommy Crisis”. To which she replied, “What the heck is that?” You know your maternity leave is almost over and you are wondering now what? And the questions keep coming: Do you go back to work? If so, how much? How do you deal with the guilt of wanting to work instead of staying home or the guilt of leaving your baby with childcare because you have to go back to work? She checked all the books and couldn’t find a thing about it anywhere.

After talking to her, it got me thinking if this “Mommy Crisis” truly existed. And if so, how are moms dealing with it? I began to informally survey my mommy friends (secretly….they had no idea they were my guinea pigs J) and realized that it is the crisis most of us go through when we are faced with the possibility of returning to work. Another fellow mom described it best as the anxiety and guilt you feel when it is time to leave your child and return to the work force. It seems that our maternity leave dwindles to a close just as we are getting a handle on our new identity as a mother and BAM! There it is staring us in the face - who are we now? How do we make the career parts of our former selves fit into motherhood? Do we stay home or work part time? How do we manage it all and not have any guilt? That my fellow mothers is the “Mommy Crisis”. Most of us experience it to some degree and like our children there is no manual on how to deal with it. My advice is recognize it, talk about it and realize that it is part of the constant learning and evolving we do as mothers. It too shall pass and we will be onto the next “Crisis” like potty training!

I would love to hear if you have ever experienced the “Mommy Crisis” and if so, how did you deal with it?

Jen Sencar works in the Public Service and is the Regional Owner of Momcafe Okanagan. Momcafe Okanagan is an organization that connects inspired moms through events, seminars and online resources. www.momcafenetwork.com