Good Enough

Well, it's a good thing that I've only given this blog address to three people because I have been very remiss in updating it. Time is a critical factor, and I have too little of it to partition out amongst my various passions. My on-going obsession with perfection is another huge stumbling block - even to blogging. I feel that I should be crafting a masterpiece every time I sit down to write, and masterpieces take a lot of time and energy.

I've felt ready to throw in the towel on parenting over the course of the past week. Someone call CFS, I'm not fit to be a mom! My anger is getting the better of me these days, and I'm running wildly from bush fire to bush fire, trying to quell my rage as it flares up here, there and everywhere. The source of that anger could be kindling for another blog entry. But suffice it to say, I've consistently felt like a terrible, out of control parent, sometimes to the point of questioning what I was thinking in starting a family. I love my children desperately, but I don't always love the way I'm relating to them. This was my big fear for years before deciding to have children.

I was chatting with a friend today over tea at the neighbourhood parent centre and that was really validating. Just knowing that other people I respect find parenting to be very challenging is a huge relief. On an intellectual level, I already knew this to be true, but I needed a concrete example of a real live person with struggles to ease my worries a bit. I think because my own mom was so "perfect" (ie. she never got angry), I have unrealistic expectations of myself. My fear is of being volatile like my dad.

At an "immaterial" shower we had for my first son, a friend shared a reading from D.W. Winnicott on the subject of being a "good enough" parent. Not perfect, just good enough. Like this blog.