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Key points
- Parents, particularly mothers, often expect themselves to be perfect.
- They expect themselves to do more than is possible.
- This is stressful and it is actually not helpful for your child's development.
One mother in my parenting group recently said, “I am in a never-ending battle with being too hard on myself.”
Why do so many modern parents, and moms in particular, feel the need to be perfect as parents? Why do we put that much pressure on ourselves?
Just a few weeks ago, a mom was telling me how guilty she felt for getting more babysitting help. This was not because she wanted more time for herself—it was because she needed to work more and thus needed more coverage at home. But she still wondered, “Is it OK?” She was worried that her children would miss her too much and that these feelings would damage them in some way.
At some point in recent history, many mothers started to feel like they had to be perfect in order to bring up decent children.
Moms started to feel like they had to make all their baby’s food, had to play on the floor with their babies and children multiple times a day, and had to be really present in the moment with their children all the time. They felt like they had to read to their babies every day starting at birth and feed their children healthy food at all times—organic if possible, farm fresh whenever available, often gluten-free, and no sugar, ever. And, as their children got older they felt like they had to provide interesting projects, team sports, music lessons, and swim lessons, as well as some kind of religious education and—well, you get the point.
But what if our children get bored anyway? Or eat some cookies? Or pizza? Or heaven forbid, french fries on the couch? Oftentimes, parents feel guilty, as if we've "failed."
It’s too much.
In 1953 the British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott coined the term, “the good enough mother.” He meant that mothers do not have to be perfect to raise their children well. They just have to be good enough.
Winnicott took care of thousands of babies during his career and what he observed is this: It does not benefit babies or children if their mothers are perfect—if their mothers are always there and if they always fulfill every need, this is actually not optimal for the child’s development.
Newborns, of course, require immediate care and feeding. But as the infant gets older, they can tolerate a little delay of gratification; they can wait a few minutes for a feeding. And as they turn into toddlers and then children, Winnicott observed that it was actually helpful to them to have their mothers fail them in small ways at times. This built up their frustration tolerance and their ability to delay gratification. It prepared them for the inevitable disappointments they would experience in the real world.
The real world is not perfect. Life is not perfect. Our children need to be prepared for a life that includes some disappointment—and for relationships with other people that involve some ups and downs. Friends, and eventually partners, are not always available; they are not always kind. Children need to be prepared to negotiate these inevitabilities.
So, mothers—stop putting so much pressure on yourselves! If you say you will do something for your child and then you cannot, if you promise something for dessert and then you find you’re all out, if you say you’ll be there in a minute and it takes you 10, if you can’t find the favorite shirt or if you haven't washed your child's sports uniform, your child will survive.
These experiences of small failures on your part and small disappointments for your child are opportunities. They are opportunities to learn how to tolerate disappointment. And they are also opportunities for repair. You apologize to your child and your child learns that you are not perfect but that you still love him or her.
You do not need to be perfect, moms. Your child does not need you to be perfect. In fact, putting this much pressure on yourself just isn’t helpful. It is likely to make you less happy as a mom, less playful, and less able to cope with the multitude of pressures that come up in your life.
So, take a few minutes to take this in. Give yourself a break psychologically. And face it: There will be days when you feel less than perfect as a mom. And that's OK.
