Henrietta Hay's Column

It's not love that makes the world go 'round. It's guilt.

If tired young mothers didn't feel guilty, American babies might be fed forever on potato chips and Twinkies. If children didn't feel guilty they wouldn't chase the dog frantically down the street because they forgot to shut the gate. If I didn't feel guilty I could enjoy reading a mystery in the morning instead of staring at the word processor screen, which often stares back with the same blank expression that I have on my face.

This is not to say that guilt is either bad or good. It's just that, like the mountain, it exists.

We read about the guilt-ridden Catholic girls who were taught in the convent. And we read about the Jewish Mothers pushing chicken soup and guilt on their children. Those are merely stereotypes. Guilt is universal, and I learned it from my WASP mother.

To this day I feel a nagging guilt when I am tempted to put a tub of margarine on the table when I have a guest. I must use a cube of butter, cholesterol and all, and a clean plate and dig out the butter knife. I'm not sure what would happen to me if I forgot that, but I'm sure it would be bad.

As you have gathered, I'm not thinking about major, paralyzing, traumatic guilt but the kind we carry around all the time sort of like a second conscience. It's the kind that motivates us to do things that otherwise would never get done, the kind that keeps the world going. Women are especially guilt-laden. I won't go into the sociology of it, but it has been used as a method of female discipline for generations.

It has been great for business. Do you remember the ads for floor wax? The woman whose kitchen floor has a yellow wax build-up is disgraced and she feels so guilty that she must spend major portions of her energy and money on removing that horrible yellow. I remember that when prepared cake mixes were new, the recipe on the box always required at least one real, honest to goodness in-the-shell egg. That was, according to merchandising theory, to give the housewife, new to short-cuts, enough to do that her guilt would be allayed. She could pretend that she was really making the cake and not just being lazy.

We were all made to feel so guilty about that "ring around the collar" which prevented men from getting their promotions, that it never occurred to us to suggest that our husbands wash their necks oftener. It was all our fault.

Advertising has helped, of course, but we don't need it for our guilt trips. We manage quite well by ourselves. Think of the guilt laid on us by our mothers who warned us that we must always wear clean underwear when we venture out of the house, because we might be in an accident and end up in the hospital. That has probably kept Procter and Gamble in business for generations. We've all done things to, for, or with our kids that we wish we hadn't. Many years ago I chewed out one of my sons somewhat more strongly than necessary for some infraction or other, only to find that he was completely innocent. Today I can still remember the "Mother how could you?" look with which he laid a forty year guilt trip on me. He, on the other hand, insists he has long since forgotten it. Fortunately I have long forgotten the times when he really did do it!

Without guilt family ties would erode. Mothers would almost never hear from their distant sons and the telephone company would go broke. Houses would not get cleaned on rigid schedules and more kids would go to school in dirty socks. Without guilt we wouldn't spend half our time explaining things that we really don't need to explain. Without guilt I would procrastinate and get my Christmas cards mailed in February instead of two days after Christmas!

Guilt, the great motivator! Each of us has a trigger that sets it off and none of us can escape it entirely. But that's OK. It makes the world go 'round.