Were you convinced by my latest efforts to demonstrate to you that feeling guilty is futile and counterproductive? If not, this NYT article dives deeper into the effects of “Maternal Martyrdom” and how operating from a place of external expectations and guilt can keep you in a constant state of suffering.
Psychiatrist Pooja Lakshmin MD interviews sociology professor and best-selling author Dr. Martha Beck. Beck has spent more than 20 years teaching women how to break free from society’s pressures. Similarly to Christy Wright’s approach to guilt which I wrote about, Dr. Beck also finds that this pressure boils down to contradictory and irreconcilable values:
“on one hand, the good woman should be willing to sacrifice herself for the benefit of her family. On the other hand, American women are taught to pursue their dreams and excel personally.”
As could be expected, mothers feel significantly higher levels of work-family guilt and work-interfering-with-family guilt compared to fathers. Dr. Lakshmin explains that women are in fact rewarded for twisting themselves into knots, feeling they’re not doing anything right. There’s glory in self-sacrifice, and women sometimes get so used to it, that they don’t know how to get out of the pressure cycle.
Dr. Lakshmin recommends several methods for reclaiming agency:
- Keep a “martyr log” to explore your tendency to self-sacrifice, your family’s response, and your own feelings
- When making decisions – listen to your body, and choose the one that causes less tension
- Communicate your boundaries, and increase your ability to say “no” over time
- Make peace with guilt
This last one is my favorite, and I urge you to consider intergrating into your life. As Dr. Lakshmin says it, look at guilt as some kind of background noise:
Guilt does not need to be your compass. It can just be a feeling that’s there.
Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels
You are channeling Brene Brown for me with that final point. Guilt and shame are so debilitating and takes us nowhere. So when I have explored every angle of the situation and realise that a) it’s already done, 2) I made amends where necessary and possible, it’s time to just suck it up and use the experience as a learning experience. Michael Jordan said that he failed hundreds of times to be a success. So, I channel Michael. Thanks for sharing this, Shlomit.
No better compliment than being in the same sentence with Brené! (Except Jordan, of course… 😉
They are both right. Shame and guilt are the Buddhist “second arrow” – what happened is enough. No need to add another layer of suffering.
What helps me avoid being a martyr is reminding myself that I am modeling how to be for my daughter. I want her to take care of herself. When we do we have so much more to give!
Yes, I agree, shout this from the rooftops. I know for me, with family being my top value, I do have to be careful and give more consideration to what I sign up for, but at the same time, it’s usually the most satisfying to be there for my family. Where I practice it most is not wanting to help every.single.person who crosses my path and needs help. Having a compass, knowing my values and goals, really helps!
I SO have this problem. I have been known to say to my partner and my best friend, “Don’t try to help, can’t you see I’m busy being a martyr?!”
It helps to name it and laugh at the same time. Then the folks I’m doing it to at least know what’s going on with me.
This is so good Shlomit! I’ve had my own struggles and continue to consciously work on being a martyr. It’s so easy to get caught up in these habits and patterns and face it, it can be comforting.
Totally agree. I can easily wallow in feeling like a victim and feeling sorry for myself. I guess it makes us feel undeniably good and moral.
Smart!! I’m going to try that, too!
Love this. I’ve always worked and to a large degree never felt guilty. There was both a financial reality and also the personal satisfaction of wanting to contribute. Of course, I’ve had guilt but then I remind myself that I need and want to work. Also, I think we have created some ridiculous expectations of parents, particularly mothers to be everywhere, do everything, cater to every need. My mom was mostly a stay-at-home parent, certainly when I was little and the expectations of her (going on 50 years ago) were, frankly, LESS! So, we women, we working moms have definitely been sold a bill of goods about all the ways we are expected to behave, what we are expected to achieve. Go Shlomit. Shout your message from the rooftops!
Absolutely! And parenting today, regardless of gender, is set to a much higher standard than in past generations!
This is so true. Thank you for bringing this to light.
The biggest gift my mother gave me when I was a kid was that she never passed any guilt she felt about being a working mother on to me. I was free to feel so proud of her, so impressed with what she did. If she had implied that she was torn about whether she was making the right decisions, it would have been a burden for me. Instead, she was (and continues to be) a great role model!
Go, Angie’s mom! You rock!
I think my mother didn’t feel guilty about working, she was a scientist and educator and loved her work. Yet she wasn’t confident about her parenting skills, and doubted herself a lot. I’ve certainly inherited that! If anyone needs proof that not all women are born to be mothers, I come from a long line of such women. I’m at least a 4th generation, and wouldn’t be surprised if it goes further back…