Rebecca Eckler

If anyone knows about guilt, it’s this Jewish, neurotic single mother. I feel guilty about pretty much everything. I’m working on it. Frankly, feeling guilty is exhausting, but it’s probably in my DNA, so I’m screwed.

Anyway, it’s not even 11am and, like Alice in Wonderland who can imagine many impossible things before breakfast, I am feeling guilty about a dozen things before lunch.

I have Mother Guilt. Work Guilt. Life Guilt. But there is one thing I have never felt. It’s called “Wife Guilt.” I had never heard of such a thing, even when I was engaged.

At a recent party held in New York, in honour of Canadian bloggers (and sponsored by this site and Bunchland), I met a very nice mother. She was one of those women you just can’t help but like. In my head I called her “the Saint from Nova Scotia.” After asking her how she was enjoying her stay in New York, she responded, “I’m ready to get back. I’m feeling guilty.” Since it was a mommy blogger crowd, I assumed she was feeling guilty for being away from her children. “I’m feeling wife guilt,” she announced. I thought, “What the hell is that?”

That’s because, trust me, all the women there were having the times of their lives. Did some of them talk about missing their children? Absolutely. Did some feel guilty about leaving their children? Of course! But not one of the dozens of other women I talked to mentioned anything about Wife Guilt. Except this Saint from Nova Scotia. She felt bad that she had left her children with their father for three days. She didn’t say anything about missing her children; just that she had Wife Guilt.

The majority of the women never mentioned their husbands except one other who, when she pointed out a guy and said he was cute and I shook my head “no” said, “I’ve been married ten years. You don’t know what it’s like.” Aside from the occasional, “My husband gave the baby the soother and I had just gotten him off of it,” there was not one word about feeling guilty about leaving husbands with the children. I’ve left my daughter with her father for a month and I only feel mother guilt that I’m missing seeing her at soccer and tennis camp. And I miss her to death. But I don’t feel guilty that he’s taking care of her.

Tell me the truth: Do you have wife guilt when you leave the kids or do you have mother guilt? There is a difference, as one Saint from Nova Scotia taught me.

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