Ah, choices in life…we have so many of them. Many of us in the unschooling world have been discussing how many parents choose NOT to be better parents, because they are already ‘good enough’. I really don’t understand the concept of ‘good enough’ parenting.
Kelly Lovejoy wrote in a post at unschoolingbasics:
What always amazes me is when parents aren’t willing to be better parents.I get that folks generally (with exceptions) are doing the best theycan do at the time. At least the best they think they can do at the time.
It’s when they think that they can’t do/be better—that “good enough” is good enough—that’ s what blows my mind.
How can someone be a “good enough” parent? Why would that be a goal?
I *know* *I* can be better.
There are things that I do “well enough”—and I’m OK with them. Auto repair. I’m willing to pay someone for that! <g> I really don’t want to be more knowledgeable about my minivan. It’s OK. Really. Golf. It’s OK. Really! Plumbing. Mountain climbing. I don’t feel that I need to be better at any of those things. Really. <g>
I *like* being a better gardener, a better dog show judge, a better cook. Because I want to be better at these things, I work at them. If I didn’t care about getting better, I’d be happy with “good enough.”
Being a parent and a spouse are, *I* think, the two most important roles I’ll have. I can never be “good enough.”
Wise thoughts. I think it is important to not let perfection get in the way of progress when it comes to parenting. It’s unfair to have a goal of perfection, because then you spend your time focusing on how you are or are not reaching it (not that you ever will fully reach it). I find that it’s more important to focus on the moment…how could I make this moment the best it can be? I could yell, shame, cast judgment and so on for a behavior that I find unacceptable, I could say/do nothing or I could take a step back, assess how I (not those around me) really feel about the behavior, find a way to say ‘yes’ to it and then do my best to reach that goal. I could buy organic foods only when they are on sale or I could do my best to rearrange our buying, cooking & eating out habits to allow me to buy as much organic foods as possible all the time. I could decide to not attend a formal event so that my children wouldn’t have to to be under undue stress to ‘act right’ and I wouldn’t have to abuse my parental guidance by ‘making sure’ they ‘act right’. I could react as horrified when my child cuts his hair or I could help him finish the job and then style it.
It’s not only me who has these choices, it’s ALL parents, regardless of what circumstances they find themselves in — their choices might not be glorious around every corner, but there is always at least two choices in any situation. Why not choose the one that is better for everyone, the one that is more liberating for everyone, the one that honors the most autonomy and uses the least force?
Yes, being a parent and a spouse are the two most important jobs in the world. If everybody try as hard as possible to be better parents also better spouses, then we could have a far better world to live in along with all sort of people who are kind as well as trustworthy to live with.
Comment by Dilasari Hidayat — October 14, 2008 @ 11:33 pm
*sigh* I have mixed feelings about this. In cultures where the extended family, vs. the nuclear family are the norm, parenting is much more intuitive and they are lucky to be free of overthinking things, parenting is a joy for them, they live in child friendly cultures where children are treasured and valued. My inlaws never overthought their parenting, they parented how they felt like it, often imperfectly, but raised two wonderful sensitive sons who are close to their parents and who are very devoted fathers themselves. Their parents are Italian and Croatian, and stubborn in the European way, they’d never think to overthink or spend hours analyzing their parenting, and in some ways, I think parenting was naturally more enjoyable for them because of it. Me on the other hand, I had a fucked up childhood so I spend so much of my time overthinking my parenting in order to not repeat how I was parented, though often the overthinking contributes to worse parenting by me, because it stresses me out! Gordon Neufeld talks about how naturally older cultures parent in his amazing book “Hold on to your kids”, have you read it? The one thing he has in common with unschoolers is that he places great, great value on the parents relationships with their kids, he attributes this to why some cultures seem to parent more naturally without needing to think about it. Anyways, rambling here. Not sure it’s in everyone’s best interests to always be trying to do better or to question whether what they are doing is good enough. I sure wish I didn’t have to, and I admire many healthy and wonderful families who don’t.
Comment by :::::::::::: wife mom maniac :::::::::::: — October 21, 2008 @ 12:51 am
My childhood wasn’t peaches & pie either…I think both of my parents simultaneously used all 12 roadblocks mentioned in P.E.T. during every waking moment of my life while living with them and still continue to at times!
I have often thought it is ‘unfair’ to compare today’s parent to the parent of yesterday or to parents in more tribal cultures. However, we can learn so much about ourselves and why we do the things we do when we compare them. We can also recognize areas where we can change for the better. I also honestly believe, aside from extreme cases, all parents would act in a more loving and intuitive way if they didn’t spend their every waking hour being told by an *expert* just how they are wrong to do what comes naturally from the heart and more often than not told to do what comes naturally from the experience of tuning out our heart’s messages.
In our hearts, we don’t want to be manipulative, punitive or non-accepting, but our culture almost thrives on just these things and we have been, in a way, brainwashed to act in these ways — even when our hearts scream at us to NOT do the things we do.
And no, I don’t think we should spend every minute second guessing ourselves…that speaks of striving for perfection, which can NOT be achieved. However, we allow ourselves so many ‘teachable moments’ every day where we CAN be better if we choose to do so — why wouldn’t we want to choose to be better in these moments?
Comment by michele james-parham — October 21, 2008 @ 2:41 am