Guest blogger Susan K. Finston gives her take on working mom guilt. We try so hard to be the “perfect mom”  that we sometimes forget how much others appreciate our beautiful domestic dance, no matter how flawed and how guilty we feel at not doing everything perfectly:

A lifetime ago before I was a mother, I found myself working in London at one of the largest U.S. Consular Sections in the world, where nearly the entire first floor of what had been designed as an open plan modern building had been chopped up to accommodate a virtual factory for visa and passport services.

Despite the seemingly unending visa line, I really had nothing to complain about:  I was young, healthy, newly engaged to be married, and living in London.

At the U.S. Embassy in London I met a lot of interesting people who had lived and worked all over the world, among them someone who introduced another cliché of the State Department when he joked about running away with the “Foreign Circus.”

This proved an apt description on many levels, and in fact triggered a dream that I had early on in my London tour that has haunted me over the years, in a good way.

I have seldom had a more vivid dream.

In my dream, this same senior colleague, who I probably now would not even recognize, was part of a parade of circus performers and animals, including a dancing bear in a tutu; the classic image of the dancing bear.

I will never forget the way that he said, when I asked him what he was doing, that he was on tour with the Foreign Circus.

Most of all, I remember that the bear seemed so joyous to be dancing, so pleased with its own performance.

And in fact when we see a dancing bear, in a tutu or otherwise, we don’t focus on the precision of its ballet or tap steps.  We do not complain or criticize the way it is dancing.

No, we are impressed, and rightly so, with the effort of dancing itself, and the happiness that the bear reflects in its achievement.

That has been the lesson that I think my dream has been trying to teach me, and that has been so hard for me to hold onto in my waking hours.

So much of the time we struggle against reality to achieve a perfection that we think is required, when in fact we may be the only ones watching our own performance with an unforgiving eye.

Being the Dancing Bear means accepting our own humanity, embracing our own imperfections, and enjoying the dance anyway.

Our kids, our spouses and our friends don’t think we are perfect and they love us anyway.

So why rush to embrace guilt over not being the perfect mother, wife or whatever?

Instead, be the Dancing Bear.  It is good enough that we are still dancing.

This is not without effort; I have been working on it now through nearly 21 years of marriage, raising two children (one with special needs), and three careers, and sometimes I totally forget that I want to be the Dancing Bear.

Then I think of my dream and the memory makes me smile.

Be the Dancing Bear!

About: Susan Kling Finston is a wife, mother of two and popcorn whisperer living in Washington DC.  In her professional life, Susan consults for life sciences companies ranging in size from from start-ups to Fortune 100, providing strategic matchmaking, business development, other ‘doing business’ and policy advice.  She also works with international organizations, governments and trade associations on issues including intellectual property (IP) protection, technology transfer, Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and related capacity building materials and programs.  For more information see Finstonconsulting.com.  Follow her at:  Twitter.com/skfinston

Photo: Young girl jumping on a trampoline at the Sarasota High School Sailor Circus via Flickr.com Creative Commons License.

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