Releasing the Pressure to Be a Perfect Parent

Good Enough Parenting: Letting Go of the Pressure to Get It Right

Letting go of perfectionism and learning to recognize that showing up, making mistakes and repairing may be more than enough.

By Aviva Boxer, Registered Psychotherapist

When my kids were young, I was working full time at a corporate office job, and I was busy and running all the time. I was racing through my mornings to get the kids to daycare and school, racing through work to get everything done even though I never actually did, and then racing to pick the kids up, get home, make dinner, do bathtime and bedtime, fall into bed myself and do it all over again the next day.

I always felt like I was failing as a mom and as an employee because I could never give my full attention to either. There was always something else I should have been doing, someone who needed something from me, or something I hadn't quite managed to get done. And in the years before I found meditation and mindfulness, I constantly felt anxious, like there was an elephant sitting on my chest.

I don't think I was unusual in feeling this way. So many parents are trying to navigate work, children, relationships, household responsibilities and their own needs, all while carrying an enormous expectation that they should somehow be able to do all of it well. It is very easy to begin believing that if we could just become a little more organized, patient, present, productive or efficient, we could finally get it right.

The problem is that there is always more to do.

Stepping off the hamster wheel

It wasn't until COVID hit that I was forced to step off that crazy hamster wheel and just be home with my kids and my husband. It was an incredibly stressful and uncertain time, but it also gave me an opportunity I hadn't realized I needed: I was able to stop and take stock of my life.

For the first time in a long time, I could see more clearly what was actually important to me. I wanted time with my family. I wanted time for myself. I wanted to do work that actually aligned with my values. I began to recognize that the life I had been working so hard to manage wasn't necessarily the life I wanted.

Perfection had led me to that moment. And when I was forced to stop, I could see some of the damage it had done and some of what I had missed while constantly trying to keep up.

This isn't to say that working full time or trying to build a career while raising children is inherently wrong. It isn't. There are many different ways to build a meaningful family and working life, and families have different needs and circumstances. What I began to recognize in my own life was how much of my energy had been consumed by the feeling that I was never doing enough.

And Canadian research suggests that many parents are navigating significant time pressure. Statistics Canada found that among parents with children under 15, 75% of those who did not share childcare tasks equally reported feeling constantly under stress because there wasn't enough time, compared with 68% of parents who shared childcare tasks equally.

The pandemic made some of these pressures even more visible. Statistics Canada found that 54% of people living with children under 15 reported that their stress had worsened during the pandemic, compared with 43% of people who did not live with children. Among women living with young children, the figure was 57%.

These statistics don't tell us whether someone is a good parent. What they do tell us is that many parents are trying to parent in an environment where there is a great deal of pressure and, quite simply, not enough time.

The things we carry with us

We just sent my oldest son off to grad school, and I still think back to when he was a baby and feel sad about some of the things I didn't do for him. I remember times when I was distracted or stressed or impatient. I remember things I wish I had handled differently, and I can still find myself thinking about the ways I might have fallen short.

And yet here he is, thriving, happy and doing well.

So why do I still beat myself up?

I know I am not alone in this. I have talked with many clients who lament what they did or didn't do when their children were small. I also talk with parents who feel stressed and overwhelmed now, while they are still in the throes of raising their children, because they constantly feel as though they are falling short.

It can be very difficult to see what we are doing right when our attention is continually drawn to what we think we should be doing better. We remember the time we lost our patience more readily than the hundreds of ordinary moments when we showed up. We remember the soccer game we missed rather than all the rides we provided. We remember the night we were too exhausted to read another story rather than all the nights we did.

Perfectionism has a way of keeping score, and it rarely counts the things that matter most.

What does “good enough” really mean?

This is where the work of Donald Winnicott offers such a helpful perspective.

Winnicott was a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst who introduced the concept of the “good-enough mother” in 1953. His idea challenged the notion that children need a perfect parent. Instead, he described a parent who is sufficiently responsive to a child's needs and provides a safe and supportive environment in which the child can grow.

“Good enough” doesn't mean careless, disengaged or indifferent. It doesn't mean that we stop trying or that our children don't need love, attention, boundaries, and consistency. It means that we don't have to get everything right.

In fact, Winnicott's thinking included the idea that children don't need every need to be anticipated and met perfectly. As they grow, they encounter small frustrations and disappointments, and learning to navigate those experiences is part of developing independence.

I find this idea incredibly freeing because perhaps the goal isn't to create a childhood without disappointment, frustration or mistakes. Perhaps the goal is to create a relationship in which there is enough love, safety, connection, and repair that our children can grow through those experiences.

We don't have to get it right every time

When we let go of the idea that good parenting means getting everything right, we can begin asking ourselves different questions.

Instead of constantly wondering whether we were present enough, whether we spent enough time with our children, whether we handled a particular situation perfectly or whether we did enough, perhaps we can ask ourselves something simpler: Did my child know they were loved? Did they know they could come to me? Did I keep showing up? Did I apologize when I got it wrong? Did I make room for them to become their own person?

These questions leave room for us to be human.

Our children don't need us to be perfect humans. They need to experience a relationship with another human being — one who sometimes gets frustrated, sometimes gets distracted, sometimes makes mistakes and sometimes has to say, “I'm sorry. I wish I had handled that differently.”

There is something powerful about repair. It teaches children that relationships can survive mistakes, that conflict doesn't necessarily mean the end of connection, and that making a mistake doesn't make you a bad person. It also teaches us something that can be surprisingly difficult to believe about ourselves: that we can make mistakes and still be worthy of love.

Giving ourselves some of the grace we give our children

I sometimes wish I could go back and talk to the younger version of myself. I would tell her that she was carrying a lot and that being exhausted didn't mean she didn't love her children. I would tell her that pouring so much energy into work didn't make her a less devoted mother and that the fact that she worried so much about whether she was doing a good job was, in itself, evidence of how much she cared.

Most of all, I would tell her to look up from the list every once in a while.

Look at the children. Notice the ordinary moments. Sit on the floor. Take the walk. Listen to the story. Laugh. Let dinner be simple. Let the house be messy. Go to bed without finishing everything.

Because there is no point in creating a perfectly managed childhood if we are too busy managing it to experience it.

Perhaps one of the gifts of getting older is that we begin to see some of this more clearly. The things we thought were enormous often weren't. The moments we believed would define our children often didn't. And our children were never keeping the kind of scorecard we were keeping for ourselves.

They were growing up not because we did everything right, but because we loved them, cared for them, learned alongside them and kept showing up.

Good enough isn't giving up. It isn't lowering our standards or deciding that our choices don't matter. It is letting go of the impossible standard that says we must be everything to everyone, all the time.

It is choosing presence over perfection. It is allowing ourselves to be human. And sometimes, especially when we look back at the years when our children were small, it is allowing ourselves to consider a possibility that perfectionism makes very difficult to see:

Maybe I did better than I thought I did.

If you are struggling with perfectionism, parenting stress, anxiety, or the feeling that you are constantly falling short, therapy can provide a space to step out of that cycle and explore a different way of relating to yourself and the people you love.

At everwell, our therapists support people through the challenges of parenting, relationships, anxiety, stress and the many transitions that can come with different stages of life. You don't have to figure everything out on your own.

If you would like support, connect with us for a free consultation to learn more about how therapy could help.