14/09/2026
There's the mum guilt everyone talks about — the general kind, the one i think is directly related to losing the village. Millennia ago, this wasn't a solo job. Raising kids was a team sport, spread across a whole community. Now it's mostly just us, stretched thin, quietly measuring ourselves against perfectionism and productivity, waiting to drop a ball.
That's not the guilt I mean here though.
I mean the specific one that shows up when you look back at parenting your neurodivergent child and realise you didn't know what you didn't know at the time — and some of what felt like good, intuitive parenting actually did a bit more harm than good.
Mine - giving my eldest the illusion of choice. Standard advice, meant to build agency and responsibility. For her, it often did the opposite.
I've got a list of these. Small ones, mostly. And I'm working hard on letting all of it go — because hindsight shouldn't be a weapon we use against ourselves, it's just information I didn't have yet.
If you're carrying a version of this too and this next bit it helpful - I give you permission to let it go. You were doing your best with what you knew at the time. Sending love.
