Working Mom Guilt Is Information, Not a Verdict

You feel guilty when you're working, guilty when you're with your kids, and somehow even guilty when you finally get a moment to yourself. Sound familiar? After interviewing dozens of working moms, I discovered something fascinating about the guilt we carry, and it's changed how I handle my own. In this episode, I'm sharing a powerful mindset shift that will help you stop letting guilt call the shots, figure out what it's actually telling you, and finally give yourself permission to be the mom YOU want to be, without sacrificing your ambition.

In this episode, we unpack: 

  • Why mom guilt follows working moms everywhere 

  • What my research revealed about guilt and motherhood 

  • How to treat guilt as information, not a verdict 

  • The difference between listening to guilt and obeying it 

  • How to redefine what being a good mom means to you

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Transcript 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it. 

 

Well, hello, hello there, working moms. I'm so glad you're here because today we are talking about something I know every single one of you has probably felt, certainly in the last week or two, maybe even today, or possibly just in the last hour. That's guilt. 

 

Now, if you've been listening to me for a while, I've obviously talked about the subject of guilt. It's hard to speak to working moms and coach working moms and obviously not have a conversation about guilt. I've done episodes on what guilt is, or at least how I view it, where it comes from, how you work through it, and I stand behind all of that. 

 

But today, I'm coming at mom guilt from a bit of a different angle. Because as a part of the series of the State of the Working Mom, I asked working moms in dozens and dozens of interviews to tell me the truth about their lives, and guilt came up in nearly every single conversation. 

 

Now, what struck me wasn't that it was there. I mean, we all know it's there. What struck me was the shape it's been taking. I'm going to walk you through that today, and I'm going to offer you a way of thinking about guilt that I've been leaning on in my own life, and I'm going to offer you a way of thinking about guilt that I've been leaning on in my own life that I have found very, very effective. 

 

It's one of the methodologies I use when I coach my own clients. I'm going to dive into that today as well. 

 

When Mom Guilt Hits: The Emotional Cost of Being Away From Your Kids 

Here's where I've been at. I've been traveling a lot more over the last probably three to four months lately, a lot more than usual. I am in the middle of joining a coaching firm that is having me fly out to Atlanta multiple times to meet with that team. I've also been giving a lot more keynotes and workshops. I was in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and here's the thing, my kids don't really like it. 

 

My daughter in particular, now she's the one that tends to call me at night when I'm away, tell me that she really misses me. I think, if I'm honest, I'm a bit of her anchor as well. She's told me pretty straight out that I'm leaving too much and traveling too much, and I shouldn't be traveling so much, and why am I away from the family so much? 

 

My gosh, friends, I feel that throughout my entire body. I felt like a bad mom, and immediately that sinking, heavy feeling in my chest takes over. 

 

Here's what I want you to notice about this moment, though. I don't doubt that I love my kids, obviously. I don't doubt that the work I'm doing really matters, and that travel is a part of building the life and the business that I want. 

 

Both of those things are true at the same time, and that's exactly what makes guilt so tricky. 

 

It doesn't show up because you're doing something wrong. It shows up because two things you care about are pulling you in different directions, and you feel like you're standing in the middle. 

 

My guess is that you know this feeling well, and so let me tell you what I have heard when I've been listening to other working moms speak about guilt, and this is essentially what I was diving into in the report on the section around guilt. 

 

And by the way, if you have not downloaded your State of the Working Mom 2026 research report, it is free and it is available to you. You can go to the show notes and click on the link and find that for yourself. You're definitely going to want to get your hands on that report. 

 

Why Working Mom Guilt Follows You Everywhere 

So when I went back through these interviews, I expected to hear a lot, "Oh, I just wish I was home more. I wish I was with my kids more. I wish I had more time with my kids." And of course, I heard some of that, but what was really striking is that guilt wasn't really just about one thing. It sort of followed women everywhere. 

 

It showed up when you're at work and you're thinking about kids, and it showed up when you're with your kids and your mind starts drifting off to work. And my favorite, and I say favorite because it's so painfully true, is that it shows up when you finally take time for yourself and you feel relief, and then you feel guilty about that relief. That's like guilt about guilt. 

 

One of the women I interviewed was an attorney and a mom of two. She said it better than I ever could. She said, "When I'm at work, guilt. When I'm with my kids, guilt. When I take time for myself, guilt. There's no configuration of my day that is guilt-free. No configuration of my day that is guilt-free." 

 

Isn't that something? 

 

And another woman, a working mom, a senior leader, she told me, "Society has created the image of what a good mom looks like, and I don't match it. I've stopped trying to, but the guilt didn't get the memo." 

 

The guilt didn't get the memo. I love that because so many of you have done the work. You've stopped chasing the Pinterest-perfect version of motherhood. You know in your head that you're a really great mom, and the guilt still shows up like it never got the update. 

 

Another woman said something similar. She said, "I don't question whether I'm a good mom. I know I am, but I still feel like I'm failing somehow every single day." Just a little bit. Every single day. 

 

91% of Mothers Experience Mom Guilt: Why You're Not Alone 

Now I want to give you some numbers because I think it helps to know how common this truly is. A survey that came out this April from Kantar of just over a thousand women in the U.S. found that 91% of mothers feel mom guilt. 91%. That's huge. 

 

And KPMG's 2025 survey of working parents found that half of working moms report feeling guilty as a major challenge, compared to only 38% of fathers. 

 

So if you've been walking around thinking you're the only one who feels this way or that you're somehow handling motherhood worse than anyone else around you, hear me. This is the norm. This is what it feels like to be a working mom right now. 

 

Mom Guilt Is Not Proof You're Failing: It's Data, Not a Verdict 

But here's what I really want you to hear. Guilt is not proportional to reality. Across all of these conversations, here's what I've noticed. The guilt was almost never proportional to reality. 

 

These women were showing up. They were doing extraordinary things for their families. And they're doing extraordinary things as leaders in their company. And yet, they are still carrying this heavy, constant feeling that they're falling short. 

 

That tells me something important. The guilt was not an accurate signal of failure. It was the cost of caring deeply while living in a culture that sets the bar for motherhood at a height that no one can actually reach. 

 

I'm going to say that again because I think it might be the most important thing I say here today. And I really want you to hear it. Guilt is not proof that you're failing. It's what it costs to care this much in a world that keeps raising the bar. 

 

And that brings me to something I've been practicing in my own life. And it's an idea that I really want to leave with you here today. 

 

Guilt is data, not a verdict. Guilt is information. It is not a verdict. 

 

How to Stop Letting Mom Guilt Make Decisions for You 

OK, let me explain the difference because I think it really does change everything. A verdict says you did something wrong. You're a bad mom. You should stop. It's final, right? A verdict is final. It's a ruling. 

 

And we like to treat guilt like it's a verdict, right? We do one of two things. We either obey it and we start dismantling the things that sort of matter to us, our work and our travel and our ambition, because the guilt told us to do that, right? So it gets confusing. 

 

Or we fight it and we push it down and we tell ourselves we shouldn't be feeling this way. And then we feel guilty about feeling guilty, right? That's the spiral. 

 

Information is different. Information just tells you something, and then you get to decide what to do with it. 

 

So let me walk you through how I'm doing this with my daughter. When she tells me I'm leaving too much and that wave of guilt, like, flows over me, I've been asking myself, what is this guilt actually telling me? 

 

And here's what I've landed on in this particular situation. It's telling me that I really, really love my daughter. And she really, really loves me. It tells me that her feelings matter to me. And that I'm paying attention to how she's doing. All of that is really, really good information. That's a mom who's tuned in. 

 

What it is not telling me is it's not telling me that I'm failing her. It's not telling me that I should stop doing work that matters to me. It's not a ruling on who I am as a mom. 

 

Can you see the difference? Yes, the guilt is real. The feeling is real. And feeling all feelings are okay. You hear me teach that a lot. But the conclusion I used to draw from it, that I'm doing something wrong, was never actually in the data. 

 

When Mom Guilt Can Actually Help You Make Meaningful Changes 

Now, I want to be really honest with you because I don't want this to sound like, oh, just ignore the guilt and carry on. That's not what I'm saying at all. Sometimes the information is useful in a really practical way. Sometimes your guilt is actually pointing at something that you can adjust. 

 

For me, maybe that looks like being more intentional with how I connect with my daughter when I'm away. Or making sure that that first evening that I'm back home, I'm not, like, half there. Those are really real, loving adjustments that come from me listening to that guilt. 

 

Let me give you another example. I have a client who also tends to travel a lot. And her daughters are even younger than mine. And she even has family that tells her that she travels too much and she's away from her family too much. And so there's, like, heaps of guilt that come from the nature of her work. 

 

And yet she really wouldn't want to be doing anything else. She loves what she does. And so we coached and coached and coached. And she just really wanted this guilt to go away. 

 

And I said, "But what if the guilt isn't really a problem? What if it's just information? What might it be telling you if you don't, like, land on a verdict from the guilt?" 

Right? Because she was so, like, deeply entangled in this idea that because she felt so guilty, she was doing something wrong. And she was, you know, messing up her kids, and her, and these family members that were around her telling her that she should be around them more, they were right. And she was a really bad mom and all of these things. 

 

I said, "Let's strip that all away. And let's just think about it as data. Tell me, what kind of data do you get from what other people are telling you, your own experience of guilt, and maybe even what your daughter is telling you?" 

 

Turning Working Mom Guilt Into Practical Solutions Instead of Self-Blame 

"Oh, well, it's telling me that she needs a little bit more focus time before I leave and when I come home." 

 

Amazing. What kind of focus time can you give her? Then we were able to make a plan for that. 

 

What else is it telling you? 

 

"It's telling me that I think she needs some, like, consistent touch points when I'm gone, which I'm not very good at." 

 

Cool. Great. What could consistent touch points be? 

 

Like, notice that when we think about it more objectively and it becomes data, it becomes useful to us, right? We can do something with it. 

 

How to Stop Reacting to Mom Guilt and Start Getting Curious About It 

And so sometimes the guilt is information, right? It gives you good, clear communication around what's going on for you, what's underneath, tweaks that you could make. And sometimes the guilt is not saying that anything needs to change. It's just saying that you really, really care, and you might just need to let that feeling be there without it sort of running your life. 

 

Part of the work, and a lot of what we do in coaching, is giving you the tools to practice separating yourself from the guilt. And figuring out which one it really is. Is this a moment where you lean in and you listen and you gather data? Or is this a moment where you just feel it and you move on? 

 

And I'll be honest, I'm still learning to tell the difference. Sometimes when it's related to guilt, sometimes there's other emotions too that I kind of run the same practice with. But just asking the question sort of changes how I respond, right? I go from reacting to the guilt to getting curious about it. 

 

And I think curiosity might be the antidote to guilt because you can't be curious and ashamed at the same time. 

 

Letting Go of the Perfect Mom Identity: Who Do You Actually Want to Be? 

There's one more thing I want to touch on because it connects to what we talked about last week. Several women described their guilt as sort of living in the gap between who they are and who they believe they should be at any given moment. 

 

I thought that was really insightful because last week, remember, we talked about how so many of us hold on to an identity that keeps us carrying too much. Right? For me, it was responsibility and how I've had to untangle responsibility from control. 

 

Well, guilt sort of works the same way. There's a kind of should-be version of a mom floating around in our heads out there, right? The picture-perfect version of a mom, the Instagram version of a mom. She's always available. She never misses bedtime. She doesn't get on a plane to leave her kids all that much. 

 

And a lot of times we don't choose this picture-perfect version, right? We inherit her from our families, from our culture, from everything we scroll past. 

 

So here's a question I want to offer to you. Who do you actually want to be as a mom? Not who are you supposed to be. Who do you want to be? 

 

Maybe that version of you is someone who is fully, wonderfully present when she's home. Or maybe she's a mom who models for her kids what it looks like to pursue something meaningful. Maybe she's a mom who lets her kids feel their feelings about her being away without rushing to fix it or take it back. 

 

I think that's a version of motherhood a lot of us want. It's our ideal. And many of you are probably already living into that. You just haven't decided it's good enough. 

 

Redefining What It Means to Be a Good Mom and Letting Go of Guilt 

When you start answering this question about who you are and who you think you should be, the gap starts to shrink, right? The guilt gets quieter because you're finally measuring yourself against a version of motherhood that you actually want. 

 

Before I wrap up, I want to share what the women I interviewed said they're beginning to ask for when it comes to guilt because I think it's really powerful. 

 

They want a culture that stops defining a "good mom" by how much she's physically present and starts measuring it by the quality of her connection. They want to end the idea that a working mom who loves her job somehow loves her kids less. The two are not in competition. 

 

They want permission to define what "good enough" means for them without submitting it to anyone else's approval. And they want tools that help them to process guilt as information rather than as a verdict. So it doesn't follow them into every room. 

Damn, I just love that last one because that's exactly what we're talking about here today. 

 

Overcoming Working Mom Guilt Takes Practice, Not Perfection 

Now let me tell you honestly, reading guilt as information, sort of separating yourself from the guilt instead of obeying it as a verdict, is not something you master in a single episode. It's a skill, and it gets stronger when you practice it, especially when you're around other women who are doing the same work and have a coach who can help you see the pattern when you're so closely tied to it. 

 

That's such a big part of what we do inside the Ambitious and Balanced program. And I'm opening up the next group in January for a small number of women. 

 

So if this episode made you think, "I want help with this," keep listening in the coming weeks because I'm going to be sharing more about what it looks like. And I would love to have a work-life balance strategy call with you to share more about the Ambitious and Balanced program and to see if you're the perfect fit. 

 

Guilt Is Information, Not a Verdict: What Every Working Mom Needs to Remember 

So friends, here's what I want you to take away this week. Guilt is not a sign that you are failing. Guilt is not a verdict of who you are. Guilt is information. It's the cost of caring. And it's yours to read, not obey. 

 

So the next time the guilt wave hits, whether it's a phone call from your kid or a missed event, a meeting that ran long, or sort of a quiet moment of rest that you seem to not be able to enjoy, I want you to try asking one simple question. 

 

What is the guilt telling me, and what is it not telling me? 

 

You might be surprised by what you find. 

 

And next week, we're talking about something that I think sits right underneath all of this guilt, and that's presence. 

 

Working moms, if you have not downloaded your State of the Working Mom 2026 report, it is free and it is for you. I would love for you to have that as a resource to get all of the additional recommendations of podcast episodes and other tools that come associated with that report. 

 

Please do go to the show notes, click on the link, and download that report. 

 

And if you want to speak with me personally about joining the next Ambitious and Balanced cohort, I am taking those calls right now. And you can also find the link in the show notes for that. 

 

All right, working moms, until next week, let's get to it. 

 

The State of the Working Mom 2026: The Truth About What Working Moms Are Carrying 

Okay. I really need you to actually do this, like right now. Go download the full report of my 2026 interviews, the State of the Working Mom. 

 

Here's why. I sat down with working moms and I asked them to just tell me the truth about their lives. I told them I was a filter, no highlight reel, and what came back cracked something open in me. 

 

One woman told me she hadn't had a thought that was just hers in years because every single thought loops back to something she has to remember or someone she has to take care of. 

 

Another said she gave her best hours to work and her kids get whatever's left, and most nights that's not very much. That's not a confession. That's like an average Tuesday for a lot of you that's listening right now. 

 

If you've ever sat in your car for an extra two minutes before walking inside because you just need one second where nobody needs anything from you, then this report is going to feel like someone finally said it out loud. 

 

And here's the thing I want you to hear before you even open it. You're not doing anything wrong. You are doing all of it inside a life that was never really built to hold everything you're carrying. 

 

That's not an excuse. That's the truth. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. 

 

Go get your report for free by going to the show notes, clicking on www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/research-guide 

 

And keep listening because everything that's in that report is exactly what's going to shape the upcoming Ambitious and Balanced cohort that starts in January 2027. You're not going to want to miss it. All right. See you next week. 

 

Rebecca Olson