You Are Good Enough!

        

            “Manage expectations and expect and accept imperfection. Many of us strive to live in a peaceful home where people treat each other kindly and work together as a team.  When we accept that is unlikely to happen 100% of the time while living under unusual circumstances, we are more available to notice all the times that it IS happening.”  These are words that we, the guidance department, shared in a letter to parents just last week. (Thank you to Dr. Septimus who crafted that paragraph!) 

            When I consider the pressure to have our children hand in all their homework, be on their zoom classes on time, keep a clean home, find time to daven and maintain our own at-home work schedules, and all that with the possibility that there are ill people in our home, I am constantly feeling the fact that I am just not good enough as a parent.  Right now we need to accept imperfection and accept the fact that we are good enough. 

            In fact, good enough parenting might actually be the best kind of parenting.  The term “good enough parenting” is based on the work of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim.  As Dr. Peter Gray noted,  “If we define parenting as caregiving to one’s child, then the best parent is not the one who parents most, and certainly not the one who parents least, but the one who parents just the right amount. That’s the parent Goldilocks would pick, if she had tried out three different parents along with the three different bowls of porridge, chairs, and beds. It’s the one most children would pick if they had the power to choose.”

            “Good enough parents” do not expect perfection of themselves nor from their children. When a parent strives to be perfect, he demands perfection from his children which will make for a very poor parent-child relationship which is too demanding. “Perfect parenting” leads to blaming-whether one’s spouse, one’s child or oneself.  Good enough parents understand that imperfection is part of the human condition and forgive themselves for it.  They realize that children are resilient and will turn out okay even if they “mess up” once in a while. They accept their children for who they are.  Such parents can develop a positive, empathic relationship with their children. Good enough parents realize they cannot determine their children's futures, but can only set them up for a successful one by doing the best they can, and by giving them what they need, but not more than what they need.   They allow their children to make their own mistakes, as they realize mistakes and failure are an important part of their development.        

They realize that children are resilient and will turn out okay even if they “mess up” once in a while.  Since good enough parents accept “good enough” parenting they are less anxious, calmer and more patient. They thereby are more secure parents for their children.

How does one become a good enough parent? One most practice self- compassion and treat oneself with kindness.  Only with self-compassion can one forgive one’s parenting errors and accept oneself as “good enough.”  There are numerous benefits to self-compassion, in addition to good parenting, as those who score higher on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety.   The key to self-compassion is to treat ourselves the way would we treat another in the same circumstance.  Dr. Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, even suggests to write yourself a letter of support, as you would to a friend. Take “compassion breaks” where you repeat aloud mantras like,  “I’m going to be kind to myself in this moment.”    

 The Torah tells us in Vayikra 19:17:   וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמ֑וֹךָ “Love your fellow as yourself.”  The Torah assumes you are already treating yourself with kindness and compassion, and consequently you will treat others that way as well.  Clearly, we need to work on that self-compassion before we can show compassion to others. 

I often think about the song “Let It Go” around this Pesach time of year- and not because there have been a number of Pesach parody songs written with those words.  I think of those words because for those of us who grew up in homes where Pesach cleaning was spring cleaning, we need to learn to “let it go.”  Cleaning the curtains is not cleaning chametz.  One need not clean the attic if no food ever goes up there.  Just “let it go!” We need to give ourselves permission to let something go.   Likewise, we need to "let it go" if our quarantined homes are not running as smoothly as we would like. 

At this particular time, we need to realize that self- compassion and tolerating good enough parenting is key to avoiding burnout during this COVID-19 time period and Pesach season.  We might try but it is not all up to us.  We cannot control everything. All I can do is control my responses and my belief that God has everything under control.