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Are You A Good Enough Parent?
Maybe perfect parenting isn’t what children need.
I was the child of unloving parents. When the time came for me to have a child of my own, I promised myself I would be the parent I never had. I was so determined to break the cycle that I didn’t realize just how high the standards were I had set for myself. I wanted to be a perfect mother with a perfect relationship with my child. Anything less would mean I had failed.
I developed postpartum depression after the birth of my daughter. My perfectionism had driven me to self-hatred and I became convinced my daughter would be better off without me. I wasn’t the mother I set out to be. Despite this, I was a Good Enough Parent. Little did I know, this is exactly what my daughter needed.
The term Good Enough Parent was first coined by child psychologist and pediatrician Donald Winnicott. He believed that the ingredients for a good parent included responding to the infant with sensitivity, and allowing the infant to be appropriately dependent, and increase independence over a period of time. The concept of Good Enough Parenting isn’t about there being a right way of parenting. In fact, it’s about how there is no right way to parent and parenting can take many forms and still be good enough.
