I had a client yesterday who recently had her second child. With a quick warning of “okay I am going to cry when I say this!”  she proceeded to tell me how breastfeeding wasn’t working. She had nursed her first child for two years, and now her second, only a matter of weeks. Mom guilt at its finest, and her eyes started to water.

Now, I’m a crier. I cry with every emotion I have ever felt, and watching you cry is going to make me cry. Harder. I will outcry the shit out of you over the thing that made you cry. Don’t even get me started.

I tried to hold back tears. I could see the look of fear in my client’s eyes when I told her not to worry. Everything will be fine because I was never breastfed and I turned out great. And then she immediately started lactating again so she could re-breastfeed that baby I’m sure of it.

I told her my husband figured breastfeeding was “probably” best at one point. That is until the day in his MID-THIRTIES his mother broke the news to him that he was formula fed. He was mind blown because he too figures he turned out great.

Later we would realize his opinion was simply because formula is God damn expensive and that is why he much preferred our babies live on FREE breastmilk. And my client panicked a bit more when she now thought of the two people I chose as non-breastfed examples.

My message is not about breastfeeding. I believe you need to do whatever is best for you. Your children are going to turn out fine but you can’t forget to take care of yourself. The things that keep us up at night and make us feel guilty do not keep our kids up at night. They are up at night for completely different reasons – like the pure joy of ruining any sleep we might be getting in between worrying.

The guilt we feel for certain decisions we make as parents goes away, I promise… Because it moves on to something else for us to feel bad about in no time. Like a decision you are going to make tomorrow. I don’t know what it is yet but I bet you’re going to feel like you are screwing up somehow.

We as mothers are not even close to perfect, and I think that in itself is kind of perfect. I mean, how boring would my kids be if my questionable parenting didn’t instill so much character in them.

They should THANK us for dropping them every once in a while.