Not the Best Mum
I’m not the best Mum. There, I said it.
I’m becoming increasingly ok with being a parent who fucks up and makes mistakes and does shit wrong. It has only taken me 17 years of trying to live up to an entirely unreasonable standard of the “Perfect Mother” to get to this place.
I went in search of the “Perfect Mother”, I looked for her amongst people I know (looked for the “Perfect Father” too but he’s just as hard to find). I couldn’t see anyone who I thought had it 100% in the bag. The only place I found anything close was in advertisements and on TV. A “Perfect Mother” exists there, doing nothing more than fulfilling her life’s dream of sacrificing everything for the sake of her children, and doing it with a pretty smile too, not looking in the least bit begrudging because she’s on her 687th day of being sleep-deprived.
So once I realised the “Perfect Mother” idea was an expectation put upon me that I would never be able to even come close to achieving (cause society taught me to aspire to be something that doesn’t exist, sound familiar women?) I thought I needed to get comfortable with being a “good enough” mother. One who does her best, when she can. One who sometimes gets sick and that means kids don’t get to eat healthy meals or have a bedtime story. One who sometimes is so exhausted that she goes to bed first, before everyone, leaving older kids to put younger ones to bed. Ya know, one who is human.
I’m a human mum. Sometimes I am here for the handmade party invites and creating 10 sets of fairy wings for a party and sometimes I’m the mum who says, “you know what, “let’s buy your Birthday cake this year and have your party at a play centre”. Cause — human. Sometimes I’m too busy, tired or broke to be the perfect mum, sometimes I just don’t have it in me.
I get things wrong too. A lot. I’ve started having these conversations with my teenage daughter who in some ways is much wiser than me, and I find myself saying to her, “You were right about xxx, I should’ve taken your advice.” But the thing is being someone who parents alone is really very hard. There’s no one else to ask for advice from (though my teenage daughter offers a lot of it to me these days!) You’re making it up as you go along. Trying not to make the same mistakes your parents made with you, trying your best. So sometimes I take a stand on something and it’s the wrong stand. Then I apologise and assure my kids I’ve learnt from my mistake.
My kids know they are loved. They know that I provide healthy food for them to eat, clean clothes, clean beds and lots of stories where I do all the voices. They know that every year on the day of their birthday I will pull out their special book and read them the story of their birth, and we will all sit around laughing as I share funny stories from their childhood, we will laugh about how one year one of my children who will remain unnamed wet themself from laughing so hard at the funny stories.
All my children can do an excellent version of me saying “Oh For Fucks Sake!” along with a passing imitation of my eyeroll. They’re good at this cause I say it a lot. Like when I realise that my kid hung out a load of dirty washing instead of the clean load in the machine, or when I discovered the toddler had grouted the wooden floors with a pancake and nutella mixture. But they also know when not to swear — cause I’m a Good Enough Mum who while role modelling swearing, has also taught them when and where it’s not appropriate.
I’ll happily list my failings as a parent, I’m grand with admitting I’m not the best. The best doesn’t exist. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all aspire instead to be “Good Enough”? Cause we’re all human, we’re all going to get it wrong sometimes and we need to cut ourselves and other parents some slack. If our goal was on being good enough then we could focus more on feeling happy and secure rather than judged and worried. And which do you think makes a better parent anyway? The one who feels judged and worried they’re doing it wrong or the one who feels happy?
Parenting is without a doubt the toughest, most demanding, most unappreciated, largely unrewarded, under resourced and intense job I have ever had. I don’t honestly know how I do alone with so many kids — it is just that demanding and difficult. So from now on I’m proudly proclaiming that being a Good Enough Mum is brilliant. It’s an achievement to be proud of and a far more honest idea to aspire to.
You’re doing brilliant. You’re a good enough mum too — and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise I’ll send one of my kids around to give them a, “Oh for fucks sake” and one of my patented eyerolls.
