When I started on this SAHM journey, it was fueled in part by the insane amount of working momma guilt that I had. I won’t go into detail about that again, but in case you are curious, you can read more about it here. I thought that the guilt would pass as soon as I became a SAHM, but it turns out that I just traded it for a new kind of guilt: using (fill in the blank) as a baby sitter. In my case, it was the TV.

I know, I know, I swore that I wouldn’t let the kiddo watch TV until he was 2. And then I caved and let him watch a few minutes of Sesame Street on the 40th anniversary. I just couldn’t resist, I loved watching it as a kid, and it has been, oh god, probably 20 (or more) years since I’ve watched it. And I’ve paid for those few minutes dearly, since most of our days are filled with questions about Elmo and Grover.

“Elmo and Grover go?” – They went home

“Why???”

How exactly do you explain to a 20 month old that they are probably back in their puppet boxes or closets, lifeless, waiting for the next time the show needs to be filmed. He barley understands that kicking the dogs is naughty because it hurts them, let alone the life of a puppet.

Anyway, back to my new found guilt. Yesterday, I found myself using the TV twice as a babysitter. Yes, it was only for about 10 minutes each time. It’s not like I propped him in front of it for hours while I ate bon bons and painted my nails. I had serious work to do. Like send out some important emails. Approve blog comments, and well, there was something else that I just can’t remember. I’m sure that it was very important though.

I didn’t even realize that I was feeling guilty about it until I was filling Dad-oo in about our day. He pointed out that I’ve just traded one guilt for the another. To which I responded, “yeah, well, at least this guilt isn’t as bad as the other” and “so’s your face!”.

But, even though I’m still plagued by guilt as a SAHM, I wouldn’t trade it in for the huge guilt I had as a working mom. That guilt was crushing. This new guilt is just like a tiny bird, pecking at my shoulder every once in a while. I can just brush it off and get on with my day.

Oh, and if anyone is keeping score, another thing I swore I would never do as a mom was use the TV as a babysitter. And now I’ve done it. One more way that I failed at being June Cleaver. But we still don’t let the kiddo watch TV on a regular basis. Just for the important stuff, like Green Bay Packer games and Dragon Tales.