Moms and the "Guilt Factor"

Sometimes I think when you become a mom you all the sudden become a gluten for punishment. It's weird because we tend to punish ourselves with guilt and we never think we are doing enough for our children and family.  Oh, the big one is that we don't think we deserve to rest or have downtime, unless we have done a certain amount of work or had a certain degree of busyness in our day.  Stay-at-home moms feel guilty if they are not constantly busy at home and working moms feel guilty about other stuff, I'm not a working mom so I don't know what working moms specifically feel guilty about, but I do know all moms seem to have this guilt factor at work in their lives.  Guilt really serves no good purpose in our lives.  I try not to do things outta feeling guilty.  If I have the day at home while Noah is in school and there is nothing in the house that is really pressing for me to do, if I want to sit on the couch and watch T.V.  for a couple hours I do, guilt tries to creep in a little bit, but I am slowly learning that "relaxing" is what makes me a balanced person.  It's funny because there is this eternal debate between some working moms vs stay-at-home moms.  I think that if you are a working mom, you shouldn't hate on the mom that wants to stay home and live at a slower pace.  I don't think the Stay-at-home mom should hate on the working mom because she needs to pursue work outside of the home.  I don't think we should have to justify why we stay at home and I don't think we should have to justify why we choose to work.  Do what's best for your own family and don't concern yourself with what the mom next door is doing.  If you have issues with her, then that is your problem not hers and you need to look within yourself and see what's going on with "you".  As moms we need to support each other in the different choices that we make and not criticize.