Parents Group Chat

I️ used to think mom guilt was when you felt terrible about not buying only organic, fashionable beige clothes for your baby and not pureeing their string beans yourself. I️ was pleased that this feeling would be something I’d be entirely immune to. For better or worse, I️’ve never wanted to be a perfect mom. I️ don’t feel particularly sentimental about being home to do bedtime or particularly devastated if my kid falls and scrapes his knee. I’ve never thought too much about birthday parties or wrapped presents or home-cooked meals or extracurricular activities. I wasn’t sad about giving my son formula—normal brand—when he was a baby (as long as he didn’t seem to have too much gas), and didn’t mind if someone else held him—or held onto him and kept him all day. I never felt the slightest pang of guilt dropping him off at daycare or leaving him for the after-school part (expensiveness, yes. Guilt, no). I forgive myself for yelling, either at my child or at my husband in front of my child (and I usually apologize). I’m not vain and I’m not sentimental. My hangups are not about not being great, they’re about not being normal.

But I’ve learned that there are many different kinds of mom guilt. Here are two forms I suffer from intensely, both societal and Shirley Jackson-ish (if you don’t love Shirley Jackson, just wait, you will understand her one day).

The first is that if there’s ever a way my son doesn’t fit into typical three-year-old society, it’s on me. If he’s not getting enough sleep – if he’s not picked up from school on time – if he’s flagged as a tantrum-y problem kid at school – if he doesn’t have friends – if he doesn’t eat a meal – if no one shows up for him at one of the frequent school day pot lucks – I’m the one cosmically responsible, even if someone else was supposedly meant to pick him up from school, feed him or get him to bed. It’s on me. By which I mean not that it will be the end of the world for him (see? No guilt), but that it will be the end of the world for me as his mom. I’ll lose the world’s good will, which can have devastating consequences for him (see below).

The second is that if I don’t conform to typical mom society—if I’m not generous enough with my time and baking capabilities, if I’m not soft and amenable enough, or if I forget snacks—it reflects poorly him. This can be dangerous, too. I’m his translator and mascot. If I’m not trusted and liked, he can easily be ostracized, disliked. And being part of the herd is pure, unadulterated survival when you’re that age. (It’s pure survival at any age, but you get more power to choose your herd as you get older).

The people who can judge a mom as incapable include: strangers on the street, her parents, her partner, her friends, her child’s teachers. Most important of all are her child’s schoolmates’ parents—people she hardly knows, but communicates with regularly on a Whatsapp chat. So for your own and your child’s survival, I present to you:

The rules for comporting yourself on the Preschool Whatsapp Chat.

Before I slip behind the paywall, my new book, Mixed Feelings, will be out January 21. Preorders are a big deal for making the algorithm pay attention to a book, so if you feel moved to preorder this one, I will be eternally grateful for your generosity.

And: would you like a hand-made letterpress print of a drawing? Visit www.lianafinck.com .

Finally,

And with that, here they area: