Am I good enough?

Many of us worry about not being good enough, and becoming a parent only heightens this.

We are constantly bombarded by advice and information from our family, friends, books, TV, social media and the internet about what sort of parent we should be, what we should focus on and value, what we should or shouldn’t be doing with our children, and this makes parents feel uncertain, confused and anxious – are we too strict?, too permissive?, too “helicopter”?, too “free-range”?, too “crunchy”?, creating attached or spoilt children by the way we respond to them? and on and on and on.

The good news is that all we need to be is “good enough”. A friend used a great phrase the other day, that “perfect is the enemy of good” and this definitely applies to parenting as well as life in general. Tying ourselves up in knots trying to get everything just right for our children isn’t necessary and can even be really detrimental to us and them, despite our best intentions, which is why all we need to embrace the concept of striving to be a “good enough mother”.

Good enough mother is a phrase first used by Donald Winnicott, a British paediatrician and psychoanalyst, in 1953. He observed interactions between thousands of babies and their mothers and found that when babies are very small, mothers tend to respond very quickly to a baby’s cry, sacrificing their own sleep and needs to fulfil the needs of the baby (which is why it is so vital that new mums are looked after by others!) However, as time goes by, it isn’t possible to maintain this level of responsiveness and so the baby gradually experiences small moments of frustration, when they cry and the parent can’t respond immediately. Perhaps they is having a shower, in the middle of cooking dinner, tending to another child, any of the million other tasks of the day. To be clear this isn’t talking about leaving babies to cry alone through neglect but just the reality of life that it’s not possible to be there every minute of every day. She can’t be “perfect”, but is “good enough” so that the child learns to cope with small amounts of frustration.

This change in responsiveness ties in with the cognitive development of babies. When they are first born, they have no concept of the world being separate to them; their mother is just an extension of them as far as they know. Over the first 6 months of life, they gradually come to realise that their mother is a separate being who can leave, and this is why separation anxiety tends to start at around 6 months, as it is the first time they are aware that they can be left alone! If a mother continues to respond immediately to every need, this can hinder the development of this knowledge and stops the baby learning about the very nature of the world. If this continues into early childhood, this will also impact on a child’s sense of their place in the world, and the way the world works.

But what does this mean for parents?

It means that whilst we should strive to be the best we can as a parent, we should also be reassured that failing to be perfect can be a good thing for our children. In fact, research has shown that if we can respond to or meet our child’s needs around 30% of the time, this is enough for them to develop a secure attachment and thrive. Yes you read that right -30%! Now that feels a lot more doable than being perfect, doesn’t it?!

There is an important balance to be made between caring for our child and caring for ourselves and we are certainly not failing our children if we are not perfect. We are simply teaching them about the way the world works, that about resilience, fostering their sense of independence and resilience, and what it means to be human.

So please don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t be perfect, and know that by not being so, you are actually playing a part in helping your child to grow into their best self.

You’re doing a great job already, believe me.