In this episode of Challenge Your Guilt, I’m joined by Rachel Vecht, founder of Educating Matters, to talk about working parent guilt, perfectionism and why “good enough” parenting may be far healthier than trying to get everything right.

Rachel has spent 25 years supporting parents, carers and organisations at the intersection of parenting, education, wellbeing and work. She is also a mother of four and speaks honestly about the gap between knowing the parenting theory and living the reality yourself.

Together, we explore why parenting has started to feel like a competitive sport, how guilt shows up for working mothers, and why every decision can feel like a trade-off.

We discuss:

• why perfectionism can undermine connection with our children
• what “good enough” parenting looks like in practice
• how short bursts of focused one-to-one time can make a difference
• the importance of boundaries, values and modelling self-care
• why flexibility should be a normal way of working, not a special perk
• how managers can better support maternal mental health
• why supporting fathers and carers matters too
• how to tell the difference between guilt that reflects your values and guilt driven by outside expectations

Rachel also shares the idea of creating a family mission statement, helping families become clearer about what they stand for and how they want life at home to feel.

For any mother who feels she is holding everything together by a thread, this conversation is a reminder that your children do not need a flawless performance. They need connection, safety and the experience of being deeply loved.

Rachel’s resources

Rachel’s free Parenting Matters Masterclass shares practical tools and strategies for raising children to thrive:

You can also download her guide: What does it mean to be a “Good Enough” Parent?

The guide explores emotional coaching, special time, values, boundaries, modelling, self-regulation and how to define what “good enough” means for your own family.

Find Rachel at educatingmatters.co.uk and follow Rachel Vecht on LinkedIn for more on parenting, working parenthood and family-friendly workplaces.

Find Belinda

You can buy Challenge Your Guilt: How to Flourish in Motherhood, Work and Life or apply for a free call to explore coaching and workplace support through the links in the show notes.

Subscribe to Challenge Your Guilt wherever you listen to podcasts, and share this episode with another mother who needs to hear it.

The guilt you have been carrying was never yours to hold. It is time to put it down.

Support the show

✨ If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a mother who needs to hear that guilt was never hers to carry.

In this episode of Challenge Your Guilt, I’m joined by writer Caro Giles, author of Twelve Moons and Unschooled, for a deeply honest conversation about motherhood, care, shame, identity and what happens when families no longer fit neatly within the systems designed to support them.

Caro is a single mother of four daughters, two of whom are autistic and unable to access mainstream education. In this conversation, she shares what it means to be not only a mother, but also the default advocate, carer, educator, emotional regulator and infrastructure holding family life together when external systems are either absent, inadequate or actively hostile.

Together, we explore how maternal guilt is so often internalised as personal failure, when in reality many mothers are carrying the consequences of systems that were never built to support real care. Caro speaks powerfully about the shame that can come with needing help, the pressure to appear as though you are coping, and the impossible standards placed on mothers who are judged whether they are emotional, unemotional, struggling or managing too well.

We also talk about the importance of writing, nature, connection, honesty and finding ways back to the woman behind the mother. Caro shares how naming shame, finding like-minded communities and recognising the value of unpaid care can help mothers feel less alone inside experiences that are too often hidden.

This is a conversation for any mother who has ever felt she should be coping better, asking for less, holding more, or hiding the truth of how hard things have become.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Maternal guilt as a response to systemic failure, not personal inadequacy
• The invisible labour mothers carry when they become the default advocate
• What happens when children cannot access conventional education systems
• Shame, benefits, housing insecurity and the judgement placed on mothers who need support
• The pressure on mothers to appear calm, capable and endlessly selfless
• Identity loss and how writing can help women find themselves again
• The importance of nature, awe and tiny moments of sensory grounding
• Why connection is one of the most powerful antidotes to shame
• How mothers can begin to value their own care work in a society that does not

About Caro Giles

Caro Giles is a writer and mother of four daughters. Her memoir Twelve Moons explores single motherhood, landscape, identity and survival, while her latest book Unschooled looks at family life, care, education and what happens when children no longer fit within conventional systems.

Caro writes with rare honesty about motherhood, disability, caregiving, nature, desire, shame, resilience and the complex realities of family life.

Links

You can find Caro on Instagram, Substack and in her monthly column for Psychologies. Her books Twelve Moons and Unschooled are available now.

If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, or share it with another mother who needs to hear it.

You can also buy my book Challenge Your Guilt: How to Flourish in Motherhood, Work and Life, or DM me at belinda@theflourishingmother.com to apply for a free 60-minute Motherload Breakthrough Call to explore whether 1:1 coaching is the right next step for you.

Support the show

✨ If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a mother who needs to hear that guilt was never hers to carry.

In this powerful episode of Challenge Your Guilt, I’m joined by the brilliant Tamu Thomas - somatic coach, speaker, founder of the Live Three Sixty brand and author of Women Who Work Too Much.

Together, we explore one of the biggest lies modern women have been sold: that being a “good” woman, and especially a “good” mother, means being endlessly busy, endlessly giving and endlessly available.

Tamu names how womanhood and motherhood have become conflated with martyrdom, and how the cultural celebration of “selflessness” can keep mothers trapped in cycles of overworking, over-giving and self-abandonment.

We discuss why so much of what we call “mum guilt” is often closer to shame - a manufactured sense that we are somehow failing at our core if we are not constantly doing, caring, achieving or proving our worth.

This conversation covers toxic productivity, invisible care work, the mental load, the myth of work-life balance, nervous system depletion, the pressure to optimise every inch of family life, and why slowing down can feel so radical when you have been conditioned to measure your worth by how much you do.

Tamu also shares practical ways mothers can begin to reconnect with their bodies, their rhythms and their needs - including simple grounding practices and the powerful question: what actually matters to me?

If you have ever felt like you are holding everything together on the surface while quietly running on empty underneath, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why motherhood is so often confused with martyrdom
• The problem with celebrating mothers for being “selfless”
• How care work is devalued precisely because it is essential
• The difference between guilt and shame
• Why many mothers are trapped in toxic productivity
• How the mental load keeps women in a state of over-functioning
• Why balance may not be the right goal
• How to make decisions based on your actual capacity, not your conditioning
• Why rest, rhythm and nervous system care are not luxuries
• How mothers can begin to become “self-full” rather than selfless

Where to find Tamu

You can find Tamu on Instagram at @tamu.thomas.

Her book, Women Who Work Too Much, is available wherever you buy books.

If this episode resonates, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with another mother who needs to hear it.

You can also buy my book, Challenge Your Guilt: How to Flourish in Motherhood, Work and Life, or email me (belinda@theflourishingmother.com) to apply for a free Motherload Breakthrough Call to explore working with me 1:1.

Support the show

✨ If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a mother who needs to hear that guilt was never hers to carry.