Mom guilt is a heavy bag to carry like the backpack busting at the seams with textbooks I used to carry across campus. It weighed me down, slowed my pace, and made my shoulders ache.

My kids are grown adults, and I still struggle with the guilt of not getting it quite right when they were little as a stay-at-home mom. I watch my daughter wrestle with the guilt of being a working mom. No one gave me the mom manual when my babies were born, but every mom expert is making a TikTok video for mothers today. Whether we have too little or too much information, it seems that the mom guilt is never in short supply.

I listened to a sermon recently about being purposeful in parenting. It caused me to question whether I taught my kids enough about faith, read to them enough, helped them be emotionally strong enough, ate enough meals together and prepared them enough to be good adults. I don’t remember not being purposeful in my parenting, but I do remember feeling guilty even when I was doing the best I knew how to do. Mothers worry if we bottle feed too much, hold our babies too much, leave them with a sitter too much, and let them watch TV too much. It still weighs me down because I wish I could have done better.

Oprah said that she’s learned to see everything she does as a gift to the world. She gives it away and then lets go of the outcome or how it is received. And, I realized that such a perspective could help me with my mom guilt even years after they’ve left the nest.

Instead of mothering to ensure that they would turn out “right” or to look like a “good mom,” I can offer my efforts as a gift. Rather than worrying about whether I did it all well enough or they felt loved enough, I can offer my love as a gift. Even when they remember it differently or tease me about how hard they had it, I can offer my intention as a gift.

Regardless of the outcome or how it was received, I can put down the heavy load of mom guilt. It no longer has to slow the pace at which I love my kids. And, I can ease the ache of thinking I failed, wasn’t a good mom or somehow let them down. I can be free to offer my gift of mothering, imperfect as it may be, without guilt.