My Mother was a Travel Agent for Guilt Trips

I saw it on a bumper sticker once:  My mother was a travel agent for guilt trips. 

Now I find myself feeling too much of this onerous emotion and I am writing about it in order to assuage my self-reproach over the previous post about traveling north. Talk about a guilt trip...

I didn't intend to make others feel guilty. I was simply magnifying a small tidbit for the benefit of my existential prose; but it came out a little too dreary. I even went back and edited the post, as some of you will no doubt notice. 

As hard as it is to deal with personal feelings of guilt, it is even harder to make sure I don't foist guilt on my children. Then again, after an online search about the value of guilt (and guilt vs shame), I'm not sure it is entirely a bad thing. The trouble seems to come when guilt is 'foisted' rather than allowed to happen in a healthy manner.

According to various sources, guilt is about a specific behavior whereas shame is more intrinsic to our sense of who we are as a person. Guilt can lead to positive changes but shame often ends up as a vicious cycle of self-loathing with no real value. The dictionary states that shame actually comes from a powerful sense of guilt.

I personally feel that it is okay to let your children take personal responsibility (feel guilt) about their own choices and decisions without laying a childhood-long guilt trip. Is guilt a good thing when the opportunity exists to actually make amends or change a behavior? Maybe guilt turns bad when we let it eat at us because we are unable to take back something we said or did. 

It is possible to allow children to feel a healthy sense of guilt, make necessary amends and then let go in a practice of self-forgiveness. I think that it is okay for children to feel guilt but it is not okay for a parent to put guilt on a child, especially for something over which they have no control (i.e. When a parent makes a child feel guilty for everything they didn't have as a child; when a child feels guilt for their parent's divorce; when a child feels guilt for everything their parent sacrificed for them; or when a teenager grows up feeling lifelong guilt for something they did when they were younger).

So, is guilt all that bad? If it can motivate us to make positive changes, why has guilt gotten such a bad rap? As parents, we have to help our children navigate a wide range of emotions and if we are afraid of healthy guilt then our children may grow up feeling they don't have to make amends or feel bad for the things they do. Guilt can be a learning tool as long as we recognize both its positive and negative sides.

In doing a little research while writing this post, I've come to see and understand guilt in a different light. Guilt may have a bad name but it can be a good tool when experienced appropriately. There is a time for guilt and its attendant follow-up action and there is a time for letting go and forgiving oneself. Knowing the difference is crucial to a healthy sense or responsibility towards the world. 

So, was my mother a travel agent for guilt trips? I'll never tell!