If you ask any working mom if she feels guilty about leaving her child behind while heading out to work each day, her immediate response would be - Yes! Ask her if she wishes that the last few words of that urgent email didn’t take so much time, as her toddler pulled her tirelessly because it was time to go to the park. Ask her if she doesn’t feel guilty when she is catching up on news or gossip online and suddenly snaps herself out of it to surf some baby-related info.A working mom always puts up this great act of ‘yes things are fine and I am doing well, my kids are fine and it’s one happy family’. We love the adulation of being a Supermom to manage everything with great precision and all that jazz. But, the truth is moms struggle to find time for everything. It’s so difficult to work while your children either play by themselves or watch some TV or can’t get enough of playing dress up. You never have the courage to share with your friends that each time you want to head out for a meeting or sit at your desk to work, your child sends out a scream and calls you names. When you are having a bad day, you wonder, “Why am I doing this? Why can’t I give all my time to my child or be able to manage things in a better way.” That feeling of “I can do it all” is great to pull you through the day, but we know that one can’t have it all. We work leaving our children behind, because life is tough and it is expensive to raise kids and enjoy a lifestyle that you work really hard for, if you are a single-income household.You push your sleep-deprived body to get out of bed and work so you can invest in an insurance, education, holidays and of course a good house. This article is not intended at accusing the working mom or the stay-at-home mom (it’s the most exaggerated conversation in any case), I work from home too, but it’s about putting the truth out there.Each day you probably pacify yourself that you are not the only one and you are not a bad mother after all. It’s just not your day. You will never confess that you secretly want to attend those morning meet-ups with the other moms so you are invited for all the play dates and know exactly what the other kids are doing. The need is not so much to hang out with the other moms but to ensure that your kid is never left out. I know of moms who take a couple of years off to just do all of this. I probably did that too.Rushing through breakfast, morning routines and reaching the bus stop where you probably made it just in time – this breakneck schedule feels like one big rollercoaster ride. Missing the bus spells DOOM! How you wish things would happen on autopilot and kids would just eat their meals, wouldn’t throw a fuss and sleep just when you have an important deadline. How you wish to say - I think my kid is fine and she eats everything, no fuss at all. When the truth is, you made some adjustments to make a smooth transition between things. You treat your nanny and domestic help like kings and queens because they are the only ones responsible to take care of chores that make life immensely easy for you.I don’t mind confessing that I have missed my vaccination shots( for the second one though), missed sending thank you cards, forgotten to call a friend back or lost touch with all my friends because I find it hard to manage it all. I do grumble when my kids repeatedly keep spilling and I am tired and all I can think of is - unwind. I grumble a lot more when the domestic help sometimes doesn’t show up and I am cleaning and mopping and mopping again thinking, “This is what I did my MBA for!”You will never confess to - Please don’t drop by Monday through Friday, my toddler room will be in a mess. You feel guilty that while you can surf all those activities online, it’s hard to just stop by a stationery store to pick up the supplies. The fear and the guilt of ‘I am not doing much with my kid’ can just drive you crazy.It’s hard to confess that yes I probably buy more expensive groceries, my refrigerator has stuff that’s maybe over a week old and the cook didn’t bother to use it. My children’s cupboard is a mess because they pull out and put back clothes just the way they like. It’s hard to confess to - While I was at work, no one took the effort to feed my child each food group that was important and now it’s too late for me to try. You find it hard to make it to your daughter’s school at every occasion and field trip and she always complains that you are the only mom who doesn’t participate. You find it hard to confess that at the end of each day, when you sit to feed the kids you wonder, “Why do they take forever to eat or why can’t they ever eat without spilling (it means more cleaning up, right)!?”With all the tasks that working moms find hard to pull through together, there are some must-dos that cannot be missed even if it means staying up late and adding endless reminders to their smart phones. These include - the books being in order, all assignments are submitted on time and all props for art and craft activities are sent in time. You find it hard to confess, “ I actually also love working, it gives me a sense of accomplishment probably just as much as my kids.” You find it hard to confess, “I find very few moms I can connect with and I wish I could take the 10.00 a.m. gym class instead of waking up at 5 a.m.” And the biggest confession is - I don’t know if I could be just a stay-at-home mom. It’s hard to confess all of these because you will judge me and yes, no one likes to be judged. I don’t want my parental capabilities to be judged just the way people back at work judged me – by the number of hours I put in.Image courtesy: ©Thinkstock photos/ Getty imagesMore On >> Moms