I’ve run across this a thousand times before, but here’s the most recent example which inspired the following (no, I’m not linking):
[Parenting] is a job in which you need to put forth your very best effort.
admonishes one parent to another (who apparently isn’t meeting the author’s standards).
This? Is such bullshit.
Yes, our parenting choices matter. No, not “anything goes”. Yes, kids deserve so much, and no, a lot of kids aren’t getting what they need. But who can possibly sustain a Very Best Effort at every moment for at least 18 years? I’d say no one can. I surely can’t. And the pressure this puts on women — for it is indubitably mothers who receive the brunt of this admonishment — is untenable.
Much like in the attachment discussion, kids have needs, and often we ignore those needs, or try to fill them with things that aren’t quite right. There’s nothing wrong with trying to do better, especially if one is trying to go against the standards of a society that marginalizes children and alternately exalts and belittles them. There’s nothing wrong with putting effort into parenting, or spending a lot of time researching decisions, or thinking of parenting as the most important job of your life.
But there’s nothing necessarily wrong with not, either. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with just doing what you do and not putting extraordinary effort into parenting, either.
What does it even mean that we “need” to use our “very best effort”? So what, if we don’t, we’ll fail at parenting? We’ll ruin our kids? But if they’re not ruined (and how do we measure??), then I guess it was enough? But if we ruin them, is that proof we didn’t try hard enough? Or that failure is OK as long as we tried hard enough?
How messed up is that is that philosophy? According to that thinking, if we spend 23 hours a day with our children, does that mean if we “fail” we should have spent 24? If we sleep only seven hours a night, does that mean if we “fail” we should have slept only six? How much is one’s very best? Do we have to collapse, push ourselves to exhaustion and past it (to death?), before we can rest safely knowing that no one will say of us that we should have done more? But no — someone will say we should have rested more. That wasn’t our best. We could have tried harder for balance.
Kids do not need perfection — which is wonderful, because none of us can achieve it. They need good enough. They need their basic needs met: for interdependence and attachment, for freedom and responsibilities, for a stable base to jump from and a safe place to land. But they don’t need every need met perfectly every time. They don’t need a mistake-free upbringing. And they certainly don’t need us to break trying to meet impossible standards — or impossible standards of effort.
I’m not a particularly laissez faire parent (though I might call my parenting free-range inspired), nor a laissez-faire-in-parenting advocate. I think some decisions are better than others. I think some decisions are worse than others. And I don’t think “but I was ____ and I’m Just Fine(TM)!” is a particularly good justification for continuing practices we know are harmful and for which we have accessible alternatives. But at some point, we need to say that it’s enough. Our effort is enough. We are enough. Even if we don’t do everything the ideal way, even if we perform the blasphemy of not even trying to. Our good enough effort is good enough.
You are a good enough parent. And even if you’re not, your good enough effort at doing better is good enough. Maybe you could try harder, research more, up the pressure, increase the guilt when you (inevitably) fall short — but why? If there’s something you think you could be doing better, and want to be doing, and have the ability to do, then do it. Not because you’re not good enough right now (you are), but simply because you want to. Or because it would make you life easier. Or your parenting more joyful. Or your child happier or healthier. Not, please, because you’d be failing if you didn’t, because unless what you’re doing now is likely to kill your child in the near future, better is probably not a requirement. It’s probably just better.
And good enough? Is enough.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
Ok, first, I am so glad to see another breastfeeding/babywearing parent who also leans toward free-range!
Second, I think I frequently say people should try their best. What I mean by that is that they should give as much as they can give, do as much as they can do. With CAN being the operative word. For me, with a ton of extended family stressors and a body that tends toward lazy and a brain chemistry that tends toward depression, sometimes the best that I can try is to get the child fed and insist we get out of the house for 45 minutes. Today? We watched a lot of TV (I am, for my family, against too much TV). And he ate nothing but peanut butter crackers because that’s all he would eat and I just didn’t feel up to the fight (Sick and in a funk and had a ton of work to do).
Maybe I failed. But for today, it’s the best I could do. I’ll sleep with him tonight, I’ll nurse him, and I’ll pray that tomorrow I do better.
And that is all anyone should ask. But, now I’m going to try my best to no longer say “try your best”. Because I totally see what it sounds like, well: TRY YOUR VERY BEST EVERY MOMENT. GIVE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF YOUR CAPABILITY EVERY MOMENT. OR YOU FAIL.
Kimberly — one day I’m going to write a post titled “Free Range Parenting and Attachment Parenting Are Not Opposites”. Because I get really, really sick of them being cast as such.
Um, THAT it sounds like. Because I can use grammar. And spell. And, sometimes, even type.
I think I need to print this out and stick it on my fridge, where it can stare at me All Day Long, reminding me.
Sing it, sister. Sing it.
Perfection in parenting helps no one. Being judgmental and sanctimonious towards parents (ourselves or others) helps no one. Setting impossibly high standards helps no one.
The longer that I parent, the more thoroughly I believe that my kids are who they are regardless of my actions. There are actions that could damage them, but these are fairly obvious and easily avoided. Once you reach a certain level of parenting sufficiency, I’m not sure that the rest matters too much. It can impact your relationship, and it can change the way you view yourself. But it’s not going to be the thing that makes the difference in whether your kid wins the Nobel Prize or not.
I Blame the Patriarchy. No seriously. Because women can be so hard on themselves (and other women), and in order to give themselves some kind of ego-boost some women put down other women’s choices either deliberately or accidentally and incautiously (and, grievous as this is to write, I know I do this); women who ARE doing a good job and who are proud of their good job get told they’re being arrogant or jerks or whatever (even when they’re not).
I do my very best some days and feel awesome. Other days I do a “meh” and it makes me laugh, because I think a good Ass-Out is good for the soul. I simply don’t have enough energy and Togetherness to put up a Perfect facade.
Thank you for a great post!
Yes! Ditto! Exactly! I feel you on every level of this. I push myself to the max some days and other days to the not-so-close-to-max, and that’s ok. Both are ok. Like @Kimberly mentioned, some days are filled with TV and peanut butter crackers and I’m really, really ok with that. And other days are filled with lots of attention and contact.
Not only is perfection a ridiculous thing to strive for it’s also a ridiculous thing to model. I want my son to see that beauty, health, love, humor, relaxation, frustration, anger, and fulfillment come in a million different shades; as many as he can imagine.
Thinking of it in those terms has really helped me to feel better about everything I do, to feel more strength in my choices and my beliefs.
This is such a wonderfully timely post for me. Thank you.
Thank you. I listen to women at my workplace talk about how some other women they know are Bad Mothers, and then describe what sounds like perfectly normal human behavior. The judgement runs deep in our society, and it drags me down at work as well as degrades women and parents everywhere.
I’m getting that sort of vibe from a thread on my blog right now, where the commentary took a completely different turn than I’d hoped. In trying to talk about how adults could attempt to accommodate children in public spaces (restaurants, airplanes) instead of ostracizing all children because some children sometimes are disruptive, the commentary felt a lot like “oh, I’m sure you’re just fine, but OTHER PARENTS let their kids run wild, etc.”
I just want to holler “Just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean they’re not parenting! You’re not going to agree with every parent’s decision, ever!!!”
Seriously. You can’t TELL when someone’s just reached the end of their rope and they’re “not caring” because they’ve been caring all day long with no break (and in the case of airplanes, no room to maneuver).
And that narcissistic threadjack was entirely to agree with you that Judging Other People’s (Women’s) Parenting Is Bad. Feel like I lost the point there, but maybe that’s just being flustered re: my own blog.
So agreed. Excellent post.
I agree with Kelly. This goes back to the “Mommy Wars” between women who should be supporting each other. We are constantly slapped down for OUR decisions and in turn slap down others.
It’s just as important to not blame others as it is to not blame yourself for not doing/being enough.
I like this, in many ways, and it’s what I need to hear, often.
BUT, I also struggle with it. I’m have no doubt my abusive parents thought they were “good enough”, for example. At what point does “I’m good enough”, or the very similar “there is no one right way to parent” turn into something else? Does that make sense? I know you touch on this a bit, but for me it’s quite a big issue.
Also, sometimes, much as I wish it wasn’t, it is that “guilt” feeling that I’m not “good enough” that, sometimes, makes me strive to do better. Realising and feeling guilty that screaming in the face of my kid three times in a row and making him cry each time and he hadn’t even done anything was not “good enough” was what made me sit up and change things (and realise that without even noticing, the black dog had snuck out of his kennel and come back into the house and was shitting on the carpet).
And yet at the same time there were people to tell me “really, it’s not that bad, lots of parents do far worse, at least you’ve never hit him” (and where have I heard “at least you’re not getting hit” before?)
I wish I could have been motivated to make the changes without the stultifying guilt, of course, but I wasn’t. If that makes sense.
And honestly? I wish my parents had, and other abusive parents would feel guilty sometimes, if it made/makes them stop what they’re doing.
But, I do agree that this rhetoric of “you must try your very best at all times” is harmful, when “your very best” is something that’s causing you stress and pain and exhaustion.
I wish my parents had, and other abusive parents would feel guilty sometimes, if it made/makes them stop what they’re doing.
That’s a big “if”. As a parent who’s struggled with abusive behaviors, I can say personally guilt never helped and always made things worse for me. But, that’s just me.
I have lots of stories of what HAS helped but I see no reason to subject this thread to a giant tome of blah-blah. I will say words like Arwyn’s here are the exact thing I’ve needed as a parent, the exact message that has helped me improve.
There is no prescriptive that can magically change abusive parents who aren’t seeking betterment, into doing so. I’m sorry for what you went through growing up. Sometimes I tell myself my own parents were doing things better than how THEY were raised; they were doing the best they could. But it took me a long time to have even a kernel of forgiveness and understanding, a long time.
And yet at the same time there were people to tell me “really, it’s not that bad, lots of parents do far worse, at least you’ve never hit him” (and where have I heard “at least you’re not getting hit” before?)
Not to mention actually LOTS of families hit their children and statements like this make hitting either get new labels like “spanking” so the hitting doesn’t ever get addressed, because actual “hitters” are Monster Parents (which isn’t true either). this to me is frustrating too! Sometimes I want to talk about what’s going on in my household only to have people wave it off and go, ‘Oh we all have bad days’ or whatever. Yeah. We do. And I don’t want my “bad day” to become a “bad week” or to get worse. I need help and I want to talk about what’s going on.
Rosemary Cottage: there’s no one right way doesn’t mean all ways are right (which is how it’s usually used, and why I get so frustrated so often by feel-goodism). I also think that there are minimum standards — and we can argue about what those are, but I’d say any deliberate physical or emotional abuse (as opposed to fucking up sometimes but putting in a good enough effort to improve) falls below that. But that’s about “objective” standards, things we can measure (did you hit your child today? no? great! you pass. yes? didja do something that significantly reduces the chance of it happening again? ok, you pass!). This is about effort, and about impossible standards.
I sometimes think that not everyone reacts the same way toward guilt (which makes sense, because there’s uniformity in nothing about the human experience, except eventual death). I’d say generally, and certainly for me, it might be “motivating”, but in a very dangerous way. Because it’s also incapacitating. We might want to change, but guilt and shame often leave us feeling powerless, unable to do the strong, centered things it takes to change. If we can use it as a warning, thank it, let it go, and enact change, then I think it can be beneficial. But when I’m in guilt mode, I for one can’t do that, and I know many others for whom that’s true too.
But I’ve heard from other people, like you, that that isn’t necessarily your experience. And I agree certainly that platitudes and “oh it’s ok” aren’t always helpful because sometimes we know that it’s not, and it’s frustrating as hell to have that knowledge denied or belittled by people who are trying to help us.
Does any of that sound more right to you than the post does?
Yes (and it wasn’t that the post didn’t sound “right”, there was just a part of it that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around). Thank you. And thanks Kelly for your insights too re: guilt, that does make sense.
“, I also struggle with it. I’m have no doubt my abusive parents thought they were “good enough”, for example. ” Yes, I am right there with you. In fact, I know my father expects gratitude for his abuse and neglect and my mother blames me. I was a ‘difficult child’ you see, what with the undiagnosed autism and all, so she acts like that excuses hitting me on a daily basis for years (the only physical or social contact my mother had with me most days, the ‘fight’ was almost always over my hair, brushing hair has always been an agony for me and she would not let me cut it short or shave it no matter how much I begged, in large part because she wanted me to be more femme).
I understand that there is a huge difference between my sister who allowed her baby to start food earlier than it was ’supposed to’ and my father thinking that getting drunk and going to a drive with a shotgun and three small children in the car, and that this post is referring to the former, but it does call for the questions Rosemary posits.
I’ve read other explanations of a “good enough” parent that left me frustrated because they always seemed to fall back on that “I was xyz and I turned out okay” that you mentioned. You’ve really hit the nail on the head about why perfection is neither required nor desired (or good for anyone’s sanity), while still making clear that our kids needs are important and some decisions are better than others. It’s a fine line.
I really enjoy the way you combine real-world common sense with many attachment parenting ideals. It’s refreshing for those of us who are more middle-of-the-road. Can’t wait to read that book!
Good one, thank you. I have a similar outlook, and really don’t excoriate myself too often. Likewise, I try very, very hard not to stand in judgment of other parents and other choices. I just feel like that kind of thinking and judging, of myself and others, takes too much energy, and I don’t have that much to spare. Not that I’m always successful, but I try very hard to stay focused on us and me and my kids and what we are doing on our own little path over here. Which, in fact, really is just enough. It’s enough. Thanks for this essay.
In every parenting class I ever taught, the room seemed filled with guilt. So much guilt. So much exhaustion from trying to do enough to get above the guilt.
I’ve been doing this parenting thing for well over 16 years now and I say (often, and to everyone who will listen) that parenting is a marathon, not a sprint. Except during special circumstances (the newborn period, times of illness), we all have to set a pace we can live with for the long-term. Because life keeps happening. MY life keeps happening.
I also have three healthy, typically developing children and one who has significant emotional and behavioral challenges. My youngest was born different; it was a lightning bolt, a random shit storm that came to my family.
Yes, parenting choices matter, but we have far, far less power than we think we do. That’s a hard reality to accept but it is, in fact, the reality. I’m living it. Katie Granju is living it, too.
Well done, Mama. I don’t write about this kind of thing much anymore because my kids aren’t bitty but this topic is so important – this idea of balance, and that mothers matter for themselves, not only in relationship to their children.
I disagree. I *do* think parents need to try their very best every moment of their lives. I also think that how that looks from moment to moment is not always the same. Some days I’m going to wake up and have a more difficult time maintaining a positive frame of mind. On those days, my “very best effort” is probably not going to be the same as when I wake up all cheerful and ready to run the world. Just because I don’t close in on someone else’s definition of perfect behavior does NOT mean I did not give my best effort or try my hardest or give 100%. Some days, my 100% looks like what my 32% looked like the day before. That doesn’t mean it’s not my 100% today.
Living in the Present Moment keeps people from attaching past definitions to current moments, I think. Life is fluid and dynamic. When we say “I can’t try my very best every moment”, essentially we are saying, “I am constantly comparing myself to the past or future and not accepting, relishing, or living in the present moment”. No wonder we go nuts, eh? lol
La Mujer: I’ve had a couple other people say similar elsewhere, and I think we’re pretty much saying the same thing. In any given moment, we do what we can, and that’s not always the same.
But I would argue that the very idea of “best” is a reflection of the comparing that you speak of (about which I agree). At least it seems that way to me — “best”, by definition, is a word of comparison. There must be something that is not-best for there to be a best, so if I’m striving for or expecting “best”, then I find myself wondering “could I do more? could I do better? is this really my best?” (Those aren’t necessarily bad questions, but they are exhausting and stifling if I’m asking them of myself, in an anxious way, all the time.) So that language doesn’t work for me — it feels disempowering, not uplifting.
But if it works for you? Great!
I believe in “good enough” for today. I don’t believe in “good enough” as an end state. Just like any relationship, I think the relationship with our children requires ongoing care and consideration. I think that does mean questioning whether there are things we could be doing better and making regular improvements. That is, however, not the same thing as expecting (or striving for) perfection or saying that you need to do your very best all of the time.
With regards to researching and thinking, when my children were infants, I did a lot of that to ensure that I was making the best decisions possible. Now that they are three and five, the researching and thinking I do mostly revolves around how I can make parenting easier. It isn’t about better, in the sense of the “perfect parent”. It is about figuring out how to manage the day to day challenges of parenting, so that the good parts outweigh the bad parts, and so that I don’t feel like I’m going to collapse at the end of the day. So to some extent, I’m putting effort in one area (researching, thinking) in order to make parenting easier because if it doesn’t get easier, I know that I just don’t have anything close to my best effort left in me.
Annie: I agree, for the most part. Although I think good enough, for me, is enough as an end state — I want so much for my child but I don’t have to make sure he has everything. So I have a pretty high standard for good enough, but by definition, good enough is enough for me as a “result” (if there can be said to be such as a parent — as others have pointed out, who are children are is still largely out of our control; we have influence, at best, but there’s no way to ensure the outcome that we want).
I love this:
in part because it reflects that parenting, for me, is about the process. I didn’t babywear so he’d be a Nobel Peace Prize winner (though I think it can help nudge toward compassion), I did it because I liked it (and thought the occasional discomfort was worth it), he liked it, and it helped our attachment (our relationship) in that moment — which set us up for later successes, too, but that was almost more an afterthought at the time.
And yeah, sometimes we slog through the hard stuff (frequent night wakings and long crying spells) for a more ultimate goal, but to me that ultimate goal is still “good enough”. I just don’t think that, for instance, the long-term effects of CIO were good enough when I had another option (not everyone does all the time — sometimes we just don’t have more to give, and risk far worse things if we have to stay up one. more. night).
And now I’m feeling like I’m rambling, but — yeah.
[...] sorry. I let myself and my kids down often, and I always apologize and, sadly, that’s my “good enough” some days, so don’t be coming to me claiming I think I’m some Awesome parent [...]
I love this post. And the opposite side, too, is this: my parents were incredible, yet one of the things I treasure most about them is that they DID make mistakes. Because when I inevitably feel like a royal screw-up after some less-than-stellar moment, I look back and remember that I came out, not merely okay, but grateful for my parents and loving them; that I had a wonderful childhood; and that my parents, too, made mistakes. And tried to right them when they realized it.
Modeling how to deal with our own imperfections is probably more valuable than perfection. Which is not to say we shouldn’t improve the things we can and want to. But aspiring to perfection is destructive of ourselves and our children.
If anything, in my experience, attachment parenting has led me directly into a more free-range style of parenting as my kids grow out of infancy/toddlerhood. Because I know them so well, it’s easier to tell when they need me to let go, and to be comfortable doing so. And they’re more comfortable exploring the world on their own than, for example their cousins who have been raised very differently . . .
My only concern, because I agree with what you’re saying about impossible goals and expectations, is that a borderline neglectful parent might think “see? I can just kinda show up and that’s good enough.”. That said, I don’t suppose they’d bother to read an article on parenting.
I do think we’re being programmed to set impossible goals and standards of effort which, through our inevitable inability to meet we create more obstacles to healthy child development as well as obstacles to mental health. So sing it, sistah.
I love this post. And the opposite side, too, is this: my parents were incredible, yet one of the things I treasure most about them is that they DID make mistakes. Because when I inevitably feel like a royal screw-up after some less-than-stellar moment, I look back and remember that I came out, not merely okay, but grateful for my parents and loving them; that I had a wonderful childhood; and that my parents, too, made mistakes. And tried to right them when they realized it.
Some years ago I had a wonderful counselor who herself had a somewhat difficult but loving family. She once told me that “perfect parents never could have prepared her for an imperfect world”.
Great post! I’m reminded of a study I heard about but now can’t find (which drives me crazy) in which monkeys were kept in plain cages, ultra-deluxe enriched cages, and cages that had a minimal level of enrichment. The monkeys in the “good enough” cages did just as well as those in the “ultra-deluxe” cages, and both did much better than the plain cages.
I think we forget this in parenting. Parents need to give children a safe environment, shelter, food, love, and some basic enrichment. That’s good enough. More might be better, but maybe not measurably better when you average everyone out. And no matter what you do some day they are going to be really pissed at you.
[And sorry for quoting hearsay research, and hearsay research that involved killing monkeys at that. Bleh.]