If you’re feeling the pressure, worrying that other mothers have this whole parenting thing sussed while you’re struggling, hear us now: no one has it all sussed. NO ONE.
The well-worn phrase “comparison is the thief of joy” is so apt here. We beat ourselves up with this unreachable goal of being the ‘perfect’ mum. Scrolling though Facebook or Insta we see happy, clean (oh God, how are they so clean?) kids, while we look at our gang, covered in ketchup and markers and some sort of strange green goo in their hair.
And we wonder why we can’t be perfect too. We wonder if we’re falling short.
So we’re just going to put this for rest once and for all, by going straight into it and taking a look at the dictionary description of ‘perfect’.
Perfect; adjective
Being entirely without fault or defect. Satisfying all requirements. Corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept.
Well doesn’t that sound like a big bag of fun?
Or a robot.
We can never be perfect, because we’re not emotionless robots. We are the product of life experiences, circumstances, our own parents – and that colours who we are as people and mums. Basically we’re human.
If we were ‘perfect’, we would never get tired, or irritated or hangry (that’s hunger-anger – and by God is it real!). Instead we would stare serenely at our screaming children as they demand Smarties before dinner, a smile frozen on our faces like we’re extras from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
It’s terrifying stuff, and pretty soon your child would even prefer you giving out to them to your freaky, fembotic acquiescence.
OK, consider this: if we were perfect, we would make a three-course meal for the whole family using produce picked from the vegetable patch in our perfectly manicured garden, even though we’re fading with exhaustion.
Oh wait, we wouldn’t feel exhaustion in the first place because that would mean we weren’t “without fault or defect”.
Let’s face it, if you knew a ‘perfect’ mum you would cross the street to avoid her (and then start running in the opposite direction at a high speed) because she sounds like a nightmare.
Luckily though, you won’t have to because she doesn’t exist.
Kids, while we love the bones of them, are challenging, they can be pains in the bum, and they don’t always realise we have their best interest at heart. But parenting isn’t supposed to be easy. It isn’t supposed to be perfect.
It’s about care, support, love – and often how we deliver that, or even how it’s accepted, isn’t ‘perfect’.
Nor should it be.
