The Good Enough Mother or something like that

Okay guys, before I go down this rambling rabbit-hole I just want to get this out of the way- I am doing the best that I can here. I mean that both in reference to what you are about to read and the fact that I am pretty sure I peaked with my last parenting post (thanks for all the kind words!). Alas, a blog with only like three posts is kind of lame, so here we are trudging forward. I will do my best to deliver.

A concept that is referenced again and again in psychiatric training in regards to parenting is the idea of the “good enough mother,” a notion introduced by Donald Winnicott, a pediatrician and psychoanalyst, in 1953. While a big part of me always wants to shout out “what does this bro know about being a mother?!?!” I’ll admit it is a helpful framework, especially in today’s era of social media and the ever present “mom guilt”. While the theory  is nuanced and does contain some problematic ideas, the useful parts remind us that it is not only ok to be an imperfect parent, but in fact advantageous in some ways. Mistakes that cause discord with our kids, known as “ruptures”, are viewed as opportunities to “repair” the relationship and further the bond or “attachment” between the parent and child. Simply put, we don’t have to be perfect; we just have to be more good than bad more often than not.

I’ve decided this applies to being a therapist as well.

Lucky for me, both my toddler and some of my patients are happy to point out my moments of shit. Behold: the tale of a regular ole’ Thursday:

Part of being just “good enough” but not great all the time is forgetting mundane details. I don’t remember how the day started, but I am guessing it was some combination of the offspring getting up too early, but us still barely managing to get out the door on time to get to daycare before I need to be at my office. I can tell you for sure that I didn’t sleep well. My 6-month old was teething which resulted in him waking up several times in a desperate frenzy to find one of the 18 pacifiers in his crib, ultimately failing and needing my assistance. There is an art to this. You see, my baby suffers from a pathological happiness that doesn’t fit with our generally whiny family. He is Always. Freaking. Happy..and therefore, always happy to see me. If I go into his room and turn the light on or interact with him at all, it will result in a 60+ minute exercise of him smiling and cooing at me while refusing to be put down to go back to sleep. Therefore, I must stealthily feel around for his pacifier in the dark and shove it into his mouth without making any sound or being seen. Well, I too must have failed at being able to find one of the 18 pacifiers because the next thing I know, my sleep is significantly impacted by my baby’s annoyingly precious obsession with me. Dammit.

I drop the kids off and stumble to my office on a caffeine buzz and work on getting out of my “mom mode” and into my “shrink mode”. Generally, this goes well enough and the day feels smooth. Then walks in one of my regular patients, a young woman who rivals me in comedy and bluntness. As I am listening to her tell a story of a recent accomplishment, my therapist hat slips off and my apparent 18-year old surfer dude hat slips on as I shout “NICE!” in the same tone as the surfer would say “that’s gnarly bro”. We were silent as she stared at me blankly and stated, “wow, I hate that [my response].” “Yeah…me too,” I retorted. While just one word, trust me- it was loud, weird, and awkward. The moment, though, was incredibly comical, imperfect, and honest. One “good enough” therapist modeling to another human that it is ok to be imperfect. Or at least that is what I am telling myself.  

I sat at my desk at 4:45pm trying to convince myself to stand up and go to my second full-time job, taking care of my two feral heathens. In the name of on-going potty training woes, I sent my toddler four outfits that day in case he had defecation accidents. As luck would have it, only 3 of 4 come back soiled. As my husband unpacks them to see the damage, one pair of pants is unraveled to reveal a (what can only be described as) fully formed shit-ball. The shit-ball resembles a baseball in size and is perfectly preserved in that day’s mickey mouse underwear. I have several theories on why daycare felt the need to send the shit-ball home:

1. They wanted us to have a souvenir for his memory box- one of his earliest potty training accidents at school! #memories

2. All of the plumbing was broken at the school and the garbage cans were overflowing and they had no choice other than to package the shit-ball and send it home for us to dispose of.

3. They literally hate our kids and/or us.

Regardless, the whole house smelled of shit-ball for the rest of the night. We really aren’t nailing this potty training thing. 

We do our best to feed our children dinner, but home cooked meals for all of us are not a reality given I have birthed the “Most Picky Toddler” in the world. Said toddler continues his vendetta against all things protein and eats a bowl of cereal and some goldfish. The baby chokes on a cucumber, but given he never stopped passing air that I could hear, I consider it a win (especially because it was a non-processed food!). I am distracted by emails on my phone at the dinner table (tskkkkk) and I am pretty sure my toddler trolls me by saying “Daddy, don’t talk to mommy, she is VERY BUSY.” I look up to several disapproving sets of eyes.

We watch too much TV (double tsssskkkk) because I can’t bring myself to get up off the couch and bedtime starts too late. Happy baby happily falls asleep fast, but it is tantrumy in toddler land and I handle it worse than normal. Rather than “holding space” for “big feelings” when I read the wrong part of “The Night Before Christmas” (yep, still going strong) for the 10th time in a row, I close the book and say “we’re done” abruptly ending storytime. I provide no comfort as he wails; dad takes this one on. I hug and kiss him and slip out as he falls asleep, knowing all will be bilaterally forgiven in the morning.

All in all, the day could be described as a smattering of messy, unflattering moments in a sea of “good enough” with perhaps some “great” parts that I am not remembering. I am not perfect at my job and I am not perfect at mothering. But I am here to give us permission to not try to be. We don’t have to get a 5 star review everyday at work or ace every packed lunch for everything to ultimately be ok. As a therapist, I can try to show up differently for my patients next time when something doesn’t land. As a mom, I can reflect and try to be more present and patient tomorrow. We just hold hope that at the end of a lifetime we’ve done more neutral and good than we do wrong. I am willing to bet most of us still reading will surpass that with flying colors. Hey, I may even forgive the daycare teacher for the shit-ball (or not-I see you Mr. Dennis).