Spring break and mom guilt

If you are in the Hays County area and have school-aged children, it is likely that they spent the last week at home for spring break, much like my 6-year-old son did.

Unless you work for the school district, it is also likely that this week is a bit of a struggle every year. The combination of making it a “fun” break for your child, while still attending to your job or other responsibilities is an easy recipe for “mom guilt” to set in.

As a business owner, unfortunately I don’t always have the luxury of being able to take off the week to go on a fun trip or do anything major.  So, last week, my son spent the week at home with his dad, indulging an overabundance of screen time and, likely, lots of junk food.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. My son knows mom works quite a bit and honestly, he didn’t complain much about being home. It wasn’t until I started seeing all of the fun things his friends’ families were doing, that that nagging feeling came back — mom guilt.

“I wish we had planned a trip.”

“There’s no way I could have taken this week off.”

“This is one of his longest breaks from school and he’s spending it bored at home.”

“I want to take him to do something, but I’m so tired from work.”

“He’s not going to have any fun spring break memories to look back on and that is my fault.”

Oof. Aren’t us moms always our own worst critic?

The truth of the situation, and the silver lining I try to focus on, is that I am teaching my son that hard work doesn’t always come with scheduled breaks. While you absolutely SHOULD take breaks and do fun things and live life, sometimes, work has to come first.

In my case, if work hadn’t come first last week, there were many things that wouldn’t have been done. My employees wouldn’t have been able to take their hard-earned and well-deserved breaks. The paper would not be full this week. I would not have had the chance to meet with someone at my weekly coffee chat and talk about a great new project aimed to educate the community. And, possibly the most important, I wouldn’t have kept up my end of certain commitments I made, therefore causing others to be inconvenienced and/or suffer in my absence.

I don’t say all of this to somehow elude that I am some all-important figure and that the world stops if I’m not here, but I do take my responsibilities seriously and want my son to learn how to do the same. We are all in the same boat. From the mom or dad who spent last week working to keep a roof over their family’s head and food in their child’s stomach, to the parent working on an important deadline that happened to fall during this break week or the one who just didn’t have the extra funds to make a trip happen after paying the bills — we all have our own reasons.

So, to those that didn’t get to go on the fancy trip or whose child(ren) spent the week at camp or home while you worked and kept up with your responsibilities: I see you. Your child(ren) sees you. They are watching you every day. Teach them how to work hard and, when the time comes, teach them how to play harder.

Kontnier is the publisher of the Hays Free Press and News-Dispatch. She can be reached at [email protected].