People who present a positive view of motherhood are accused of idealizing motherhood in a way that is somehow harmful. This is, simply put, false. No one will live up to all of the potential of motherhood, but everyone needs a mother. It is helpful to present an ideal to aspire to while having the humility to recognize how modest will our successes be and how far we will fall short.
One of the great misfortunes of misunderstanding the ideal and the real is that mothers misunderstand their own motivations. So afraid of the “perfect mother,” that warped image of the ideal with which women flagellate themselves, there is a tendency to turn cold. So many of us are so afraid of aspiring that we close ourselves off from possibility.
Often mothers will claim that they are “not into babies.” They find the newborn days dull and unfulfilling. They are “not nurturing.” People can become understandably muddled by the development of grit that occurs in motherhood. We can mistakenly think that having a thick skin and a high tolerance for discomfort which often accompanies our growing into and flourishing in a role that involves caring for other people—whether our own children or other people in need of nurturing—means that we will become harsh.
And yet, there is in the essence of motherhood a necessary softness. We may not necessarily embody that softness in all facets of our being, and that is not a bad thing. A person defined by softness might be found to have the moral fortitude of a limp noodle. How is it that softness and toughness can exist in a mere mortal woman tasked with nurturing a human person?
There will never be a perfect formula. We can confidently abandon perfection in favor of a helpful sense of idealism. It is true that there is a stinging rebuke inside an ordinary mother’s heart when she hears that an especially virtuous mother “never yelled,” or, worse yet, “never raised her voice.” Such feelings present the possibility of resolving in clear and specific ways to stop yelling. There is no need to fear the descriptions that hurt our feelings. They can be for our good.
Still, many of us vacillate between unhelpful perfectionism and cold-blooded pessimism. The former leads to moping and bemoaning; the latter to shutting ourselves off from possibility.
A helpful middle way can be found in a concept termed the “good enough mother.” According to some random website on the internet, “The phrase ‘good enough mother’ was first coined in 1953 by Donald Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst.” It’s a marvelous little phrase that puts things into perspective.
The mother who is perfect—who does not exist for us ordinary women—would not help her child move toward the necessary independence of growing and maturing. The good enough mother is one who will “fail them [the children] in manageable ways.” She is not cruel or vindictive; she is finite. Once we accept that what we aim for it to be “good enough,” we can learn to accept and predict our limits.
We don’t have to interpret a desire occasionally to be away from our children as evidence of a lack of nurturing. If we occasionally raise our voice, it does not mean that we should never have had children. As an aside, an experienced mother wisely observed, “If you’re a yeller, make sure you get a nap before everyone gets home.” This is solid advice.
Ideals are not the enemy, they are the worthy goal at which we aim. When we accept that we will never hit the mark exactly, we can begin to enjoy the process of continual small improvement and refinement that comes with exercising virtue.
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