My mum guilt was crippling – until a parenting coach recommended one thing ...Middle East

I’m one of the very few people I know whose first year of being a parent was light on guilt. I had one child, no partner and was happy for paperwork and mess to pile up around me, safe in the knowledge that my daughter Astrid didn’t give a damn. At 37, I’d waited a long time to become a mother and my focus, love and attention was undivided.

So when parenting coach Belinda Jane Batt, author of Challenge your Guilt: How to Flourish in Motherhood, Work and Life offers me a coaching session, I’m hopeful that she might help me shake off my discomfort at not being present for everyone all the time.

Belinda Jane Batt believes that there are two types of mum guilt: the useful type and the societally-driven type

Batt believes the emotion is hardwired into mothers through decades of social conditioning. “Modern mothers are in the eye of the storm,” she says. “It’s not the way it should be, but we’ve been conditioned to strive to be perfect mothers and perfect wives. We’re trying to do an impossible job in a societal framework that’s not fit for purpose.”

We start our session with me explaining our family and work situation, how we share the family load (Mark does more of the cleaning and laundry except when he’s away with work, which is around a quarter of the year, while I keep on top of family admin).

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Ultimately I feel guilty that there isn’t enough of me to go around – ideally I would give each of my children more undivided, one-on-one attention.

Schedule in one-on-one time to avoid jealousy

My husband Mark is working incredibly long hours over the next couple of months, so I cook up a plan to ask a local babysitter who the children love to help out so I can spend at least an hour separately with Astrid and Xavi weekly, where we can play Lego or bike ride, go to a café or for a swim.

Batt encourages me to reflect on my upbringing, to see how that influences my ideas of being a “good mum” and understand that things might not look the same in my family as they did in my own childhood. Reading is one area where I give myself a hard time because it was a hugely joyful part of my own childhood – and I know how important it is for children’s futures.

Batt explains: “This is a really good example of both types of guilt, the helpful and the unhelpful. There’s values-based guilt because you know how important reading is for children’s futures, but I would challenge your negative thoughts: what’s most important is that you’re meeting their emotional needs.” I resolve to focus on establishing regular one-to-one time doing what the children want, and reserve my book pushing for other moments.

As a parent, practise self-compassion

I’ve arranged a babysitter from next week so I can make sure I fit in one-to-one sessions with both Astrid and Xavi. In the meantime, I’ve started noticing – and appreciating – tiny pockets of time when I can give Astrid, Xavi and Juno my undivided attention, even if it’s three minutes here and there.

‘Challenge your Guilt: How to Flourish in Motherhood, Work and Life’ by Belinda Jane Batt is available now as an e-book and in paperback from 11 June

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