Perfect Parenting: A Guide
By: Crystal Jackson
Tags: Self, Psychology, Mothers Day, Advice, Parenting

Photo by Benjamin Manley on Unsplash

If you want to be a perfect parent, there’s really only one hard and fast rule to follow:

Don’t have kids.

Seriously. If you want to be perfect at parenting, it’s better not to have kids because otherwise, you are just setting yourself up for failure. It’s the hard truth we’re busy ignoring when we’re plotting and planning how we’ll do parenting better than anyone else — better than our own parents, better than our friends, and sure as hell better than the parents we judge out in the public sector.

I was a perfect parent — back before I had children.

I was going to have a peaceful household, my children would pick up after themselves practically from birth, and we would have a learning environment devoid of the standard electronic babysitters.

All parents, let’s take a moment to laugh at ourselves at our pre-parenting ideas of parenting.

I live in semi-organized chaos. It’s a madhouse of fighting siblings, toys spread from one room to the next, and the dynamic duo of tablet time and television entertainment keeping us all from losing it. I’m teaching them mindfulness, and they’re learning to be responsible for their own toys, but our environment is far from perfect. We have our good days and our challenging ones, but the parent I thought I was going to be retreated quickly when faced with actual children in a real-life parenting scenario. She was not equipped for this unfamiliar territory.

In fact, pre-parenting me would be shocked at the number of times I’ve ended up screaming like a banshee about finding the other shoe after repeated quiet and respectful requests to put them on. Pre-parenting me would assume that all the house rules would automatically be followed with little fuss, and I wouldn’t have taken into account the fact that children are learning and growing, which means they aren’t exactly emotionally stable or rational.

My children are 4 and 6 now, and we’re all learning. I’m learning every day how to be the kind of parent I want to be, and they’re learning how to be kids who will one day be adults. We’re in it together, and when I mess up, I set the example by talking to them about it rather than pretending that I do no wrong. I own up to it and use it as a teaching moment.

As much as I get wrong, I think there are probably a few things I get right.

If our parents’ criticism can become our inner critic later, I’m hoping a few of my more encouraging parenting phrases can also make the cut of their future inner dialogue. In my house, we say:

Even when we get mad at each other, we still love each other.

Your best is always good enough.

And, oddly enough,

When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.

I want them to learn that anger doesn’t eclipse love. When we have a disagreement, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t loved. They are always loved. Nothing they do can cancel that out, and it serves as a good reminder that we are worthy of love even when we screw up. And screw-ups are an inevitable part of life.

I also want them to know that their best on any given day is good enough. I want them to know that they are good enough. Just as I am. It can be easy to feel defeated and to struggle on our challenging days, but as long as we’re doing our best, that’s enough.

Okay, the last one is something I say when we go to any special event or activity. It means that when it’s time to leave, they need to go without giving me a hard time about it. But maybe even that one can apply to life in general. When we know that it’s time to let go, we should do it rather than dragging it out. This one probably gets lost in translation, but it’s still a good reminder for me to recognize when something has run its course and make peace with it.

I’m hoping the good things sink in because a perfect parent I am not!

I make mistakes. I overreact. I let my own emotions run away with me. But I do a couple of things to address this. First, I initiate fresh starts. When we have a tough morning, I remind them that we have the opportunity to make the best of the rest of the day. When we have a rough night, I remind them that we can try again in the morning. We get another chance to do better, and it can start at any time.

I also make sure that at the end of each day they know that they are loved without condition. We end our day with a bedtime routine that includes stories I read and stories we all make up and tell to each other. It’s a favorite part of our day, and it helps remind us that are a family who loves each other, even on the days when one or more of us has struggled.

Perfect parents don’t exist.

I don’t care how many “perfect” Pinterest moms we see out there who somehow manage to give the impression that their kids are perfect and they never screw up. They don’t really exist. They’re a figment of their own imagination. They aren’t showing us the hard side of parenting or the ugly side. It’s just an illusion.

Parenting is messy. It’s imperfect by its very nature because we’re all new at this. We weren’t born knowing how to parent correctly. We take nature and nurture and our own life experiences, and if we care at all, we try our best not to screw it up.

We will definitely screw it up.

Let’s face it: all our kids will probably need therapy for something. But we can make sure that we’re giving them unconditional love, instilling them with self-love and self-respect, and teaching them that they are good enough even though they aren’t perfect. After all, neither are we.

We can also make sure that we’re showing as much if not more than telling. We need to practice self-love and self-care like we mean it. We need to be body positive about ourselves so we can teach our kids how to do it. We need to be mindful about how we talk about other people because our kids are listening. We can show them that we are imperfect by acknowledging our own mistakes and teaching them how to deal with screw-ups in a healthy way.

If we love our children and keep trying to do our best, it’s enough. We might feel like we’re failing, but that’s just a part of the process. We can let it make us better by continuing to look for ways to improve and by modeling that growth mindset for our children.

If we want to be perfect parents, we don’t need to go to Pinterest. We don’t need to poll all the best parents with their perfectly behaved children. We just need to accept that we will be imperfectly perfect, and then love our kids with the whole of our hearts, learn who they are and support them, and figure out a way to embrace the mess that is parenting with as much courage and humor as we can manage.