Opinion

Good Enough or Not Enough? Enough Already!

Monday 2nd of September 2013  |  Category: Opinion  |  Written by: Mr Boos Mum

I am a film buff. I also watched a bit too much telly when I was young. My Mum, sister and I have a shared frame of cinematic and televisual reference that must seem very odd to outsiders. We liberally pepper our conversation with quotations from films and TV programmes and are always having stupid conversations along the line of: 'Oh look, it's so-and-so. You know that one who was in that episode of Doctor Who and wore that trouser suit. You know. Who was married to what's his face who had a bit part in that Ron Howard film and was in Ever Decreasing Circles, oh and he had that thing about cats'. If you've ever seen Victoria Wood's fabulous Dinnerladies, you'll know what I mean. Just substitute the Lancashire accents for Brummie ones.

One of the phrases we say a lot is 'not enough'. Hang on, that won't give the full effect. It's 'noooootttt enouuuggghhh'. It's from a Sinbad film that is on Channel 5 every ten minutes and features a young and scantily clad Jane Seymour. The words are spoken by the villainess, who turns herself into a bird (for reasons too daft to go into here) and when turning herself back finds she hasn't got quite enough potion to restore her, so she wails out 'not enouuugghh' before spending the rest of the movie hobbling on a large, feathered foot. So for about 25 years the Boosmum women have sighed out the mock-lament 'not ennouuughh' when running out of toothpaste or coffee or when someone (my Dad, usually) shortchanges you on a glass of wine. 

Lately I've used it to describe my parenting. Whatever I do, and my days are usually full, often fun and always exhausting, it's not enough. I don't get enough done or do things well enough. Not enough physio for Boo is always top of the list of my failings. Not enough reading and especially maths practice for Sissyboo comes close. Not enough outdoor time, some days. Not enough Sissyboo and Mummy time. Not enough housework done. (Never enough housework done.) Not enough time spent doing my job. Not enough time spent exercising. Not enough sleep... I'll stop now because there are not enough words in this post to do justice to my parenting lack.

When I was in the depths of despair and extreme sleep deprivation following Boo's steroid treatment for infantile spasms (a 'catastrophic' form of epilepsy he developed at Christmas) I was offered a short course of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). It took about 5 minutes of listening to me for my lovely therapist to work out that I was a 'not-enough' parent. She asked me if I was familiar with Winnicott's work on the good-enough mother. I had read it as an undergraduate but didn't have to have done to know what she was talking about. She wanted me to realise what I already knew but still beat myself up about. There is no such thing as the perfect mother. She wanted me to realise that showing signs of non-perfection or weakness could, in fact, be good parenting. If I bottled up all my worries about Boo, for example, I was not teaching Sissyboo about the importance of expressing emotions. (I know there's more to Winnicott than that, but it's somewhere to start.)

The trouble is that I don't want to be a good enough mother. I don't aspire to be great either. I just want to be good: a good parent to my kids. One who tries to get it right and goes the extra mile when I can. 

The trouble is all my list-making and self-flagellation about things not done gets in the way of that. The biggest impediment to me being the parent I want to be is not the challenges of daily life (though they don't help) but me, and my ridiculously inflated standard of goodness that consigns me to the realms of the 'not enough parent', totting around with my metaphorical feathered clodhopper.

Well enough already. I commit this to print (well electronic typeface) so that I have to be accountable and listen to myself. From here on in I am not going to be the 'not enough' parent any more or worry about how best to be the 'good-enough' mother. 

No, this is my experiment: I'm going to try to abandon the concept of 'enough' altogether for the next month. Instead of worrying whether I have done enough, I'm going to focus on how I feel rather than how much I've done or not done.

Divorcing the two has got to be a good thing for everyone. Because it's not enough to be good. Being content is what matters and will make me a better parent than checking off all the tasks on the longest list in the world.


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