What If Mom Guilt Isn’t a Sign You’re Failing—but a Sign You’re Carrying Too Much?

A guest post by Lara Schoenfeld

About the author:

Lara Schoenfeld is an Occupational Therapist, mom of three boys, and coach for professional working mothers navigating guilt, burnout, and the mental load of motherhood. She’s the founder of The Guilt-Free, Great Mom Journey, a course and community that helps moms feel more calm, confident, and connected—without doing more.

There is a free resource at the end of her essay.

For the longest time, I thought I was weak.
I thought I was failing.
The harder I tried, the more I felt I wasn’t enough.

I had tried every hack to make motherhood easier—schedules, charts, meal plans, mindfulness apps, color-coded routines.

And still, I’d lie awake at night replaying the day in my head, listing all the ways I believed I hadn’t measured up.

My biggest turning point came when I realized:
I couldn’t wait for life to slow down.
I couldn’t wait for my circumstances to change.
I don’t actually have control over any of that.

What I do have control over is my thinking. And that changed everything.

I began to see that I wasn’t weak—I’d actually been strong for too long. Carrying too much. Holding it all together under the weight of expectations I hadn’t even realized I’d absorbed.

You see, I had internalized the myth that a “good mother should…”

• Always want to be with her children.
  

• Feel guilty leaving for work.

• Love every moment, even the hard ones.
  

• Be completely fulfilled by motherhood alone.

  

  No wonder I felt like I was failing. None of that was based on my values.

So I went back to what I do believe, and I asked myself:

What do I want my boys to remember about me one day?

What do I want them to thank me for?From that, I created my own definition of what it means to be a great mom.

And the wildest thing happened: I realized I was already living it—just never giving myself credit for it.

That was the first shift in my thinking.

Then I started noticing the thoughts behind my guilt—the automatic scripts running in the background. Thoughts like:

“A good mom shouldn’t need a break.”
“If they’re upset when I leave, it means I shouldn’t go.”
“They’ll remember this forever… and not in a good way.”

I began to reframe those thoughts. Actively. On purpose. Sometimes with humour, sometimes with compassion. Things like:

“Every time I cook a nutritious meal, I’m a great mom.”
(Not only if my kids eat it or say thank you.)
“Every time I go to work, I model balance, ambition, and purpose.”
“Every time I show up for myself, I teach them how to show up for their own lives, too.”

It wasn’t a single breakthrough moment. It was a slow shift. A series of tiny thoughts, reframed one at a time, until guilt started loosening its grip. Until I could see motherhood not as something to perfect—but something to live in alignment with my values.

That’s how I started to feel like a great mom—on my own terms.

Feeling like you’re not enough—no matter how much you do?

Download my free guide: 3 Steps to Feeling Enough as a Working Mom—without trying harder or doing more.

It’s a gentle, research-backed tool to help you shift your thinking, reconnect with your values, and start feeling like the great mom you already are.