Is 90% "good enough"? - Page 2

[mamaofthree]

my dd turns 16 today... and i would say that i haven't been a great mom 90% of the time, and yet we have a great relationship. she doesn't hate me, i don't find her obnoxious, we like to be around each other, she talks to me, etc. do i have regrets about some of the things i did, yes. but you know i have told her that i am sorry. i had some rough spots as a mom/person and i didn't always act/do what i really thought was the most best way to parent. i have alot of guilt about those times. BUT even when stuff was bad i have always tried my best to let my kids know how much i love them. i think they do know that and remember that. my kids all know that they are loved 100% and when i screw up i always say i am sorry.
i have no idea if this even makes sense. lol but i wanted to let you know that she will remember alot of the 90% and being 16 doesn't mean you and she are doomed to a crappy relationship.



h

[pigpokey]

Nobody deserves or gets perfect parents, and grown children who expect others to be / have been perfect are not going to be well served by that expectation.

[Belia]

Originally Posted by fairejour

My hubby on the other hand had a great life, at least from the outside. His parents are together and never fight. His mom was a stay at home parent, his dad worked a lot of hours but tried to be home for them. He neer struggled for anything, wants or needs. If his entire family dropped off the face of the earth, he wouldn't care.

Could be a gender thing.

But I was raised in a "perfect" family. SAHM, parents never divorced or fought, I was a good kid with good grades, three college degrees, etc.

And it wasn't perfect. NOT AT ALL. Feelings were very bad things, conflict was a very bad thing, I was terrified of my father (even though he never really did anything bad to me), the silent treatment and general coldness was very common.

Nothing was horrible, but I also never felt cherished or truly loved or accepted either. So my relationship with my parents, especially my dad, is pretty EH.

Sometimes what looks perfect isn't really so.

[harli]

My Mom and I pretty much always got along. Sure there were stupid kid things I got mad at her for when I was little and probably acted like a selfish brat about because of it. But I always loved her. Sure we got into some fights when I was a teen but 99% of the time we got along great. Our relationship started out as a typical Mom/daughter relationship but it grew into the greatest friendship as I found my fiance, got married and had my first child. I know Mom wasn't perfect. I'm aware of her faults. But even though she is gone now I still love her deeply and miss her terribly. Your kids will never agree with you 100% but the thing about love is that you love the person irregardless of their faults. Sounds to me like your being a great Mom.

[LROM]

I'm gonna take your question in a different direction and ask you how you're feeling about being a mom these days? I mean, aside from wondering about 90% being enough and worry that it won't make a difference, are you *enjoying* motherhood, or do you do what you do to be a good mom out of a feeling of obligation? What motivates you to do what you do?

When I read your post a lot of what stood out to me was more about how you're feeling about mothering in general, not so much this issue of trying so hard. Because if you're generally enjoying your daughter but you have these worries, then I agree with everyone else who said you're probably fine and even above average as a mom. But if a part of you is NOT enjoying being her mother, or you have mixed feelings about her as a daughter (and that happens - doesn't make you a bad person or a bad mom, but it needs to be attended to if you feel that way) because if you do feel that way, your daughter is picking up on it and even if you do the right stuff on paper, you may well start to see some of the worriesome behavior you mention because kids are SMART and they sense how their parents really feel about them, and it impacts them for sure, for better and for worse.

So how are you feeling about being her mom? How do you feel about mothering? How do you feel about her as a daughter?

And I wanna share one more story: My mom died when I was 16. I really never did go through that phase of disliking her or being embarrassed by her, although it is SUCH a normal phase for parents/kids to go through. I never did. And at her funeral, a friend who's parents I knew because we did sleepovers a lot, she found me in thebathroom before the service just sitting there by myself. She sat down and started to cry and said "Why did it have to be YOUR mother? You LIKE your mother! Why couldn't it have been MY mother?" I'm telling you, to this day I don't know what was behind her saying that or feeling this way, but even at the young age of 16 I knew one thing for sure: I knew all the good things my mom had done and how she loved me and NOTHING would ever take those memories away. When we fought or she was mad at me, of course I remember those times too, but mostly I remember what was good about her mothering.

I hardly know any adults who don't remember what was good about their parents. And many people have very few good thngs they can say, but they do remember them and value them.

Your daughter, by the sound of it, willhave many many good things to remember about how you raised her, and love you for it. I would just think about how YOU feel about mothering her, and what you may or may not be transmitting to her unintentionally if you are really conflicted about it.

Oops, forgot one more thing: it absolutely and TOTALLY matters how you parent kids. I work with the kids who were parented badly/abusively/neglectfully and even though many of them come through it and go on to be amazingly positive, wonderful people, the impact is HUGE. And for the ones who do really badly, the impact is huge on them too. Flipside, on the rare occaisions I see kids turn out really badly even though the parents seem to have done all they could, we still never know how much worse thsoe kids would have been if their parents had NOT done their best.

There are few certain things in the universe... but as someone who's worked with dysfunctional families (and known many healthy ones too) for decades, i can tell you that one certain thing is that it DOES matter how you parent. It is not the ONLY factor that determines who your kids will be and how they will do, but it is a huge one. Don't doubt it.

[LynnS6]

My parents were probably 70% "right". Their biggest mistakes were immaturity on their parts (to this day, they never fight 'fair'), spanking, and never apologizing. But you know, underlying it all, there was love and respect. (Yes, I know it sounds odd to say that there was resp[ect alongside spanking, but spanking was something that happened when they were overwhelmed. It's pretty clear they regret it now.) They have decent relationships with all their kids. You can overcome a lot with love and respect. A lot.

Originally Posted by fairejour

We grew up in chaos and we ended up with serious issues. But after all that, I am close to my mom.

So, doesn't that tell you that you don't have to be perfect?

Originally Posted by fairejour

My hubby on the other hand had a great life, at least from the outside. His parents are together and never fight. His mom was a stay at home parent, his dad worked a lot of hours but tried to be home for them. He never struggled for anything, wants or needs. If his entire family dropped off the face of the earth, he wouldn't care.

Are you sure?

You also don't know what went on inside the house. It's possible that they were physically 'there' but emotionally not. It's possible that they did everything right, but your dh isn't very demonstrative

It's also possible that there is value to having to struggle for things. I'm not a big fan of giving a child all their wants without them having to struggle or work for them. I think it breeds a sense of entitlement and lack of appreciation. Maybe your dh really doesn't get all that his parents did for him.


Take a break, recharge and don't worry about that 10%.nOne of the big lines in our family (from my great-grandma White) is: "Do your best, even the angels can do no more."

[VisionaryMom]

Originally Posted by fairejour

My hubby on the other hand had a great life, at least from the outside. His parents are together and never fight. His mom was a stay at home parent, his dad worked a lot of hours but tried to be home for them. He neer struggled for anything, wants or needs. If his entire family dropped off the face of the earth, he wouldn't care.

This is *exactly* how my husband feels about his family. I don't understand it at all, but he couldn't care less about them. They are the same way, and I just don't get it. Though MIL & I get along really well, I do think there's something distant about her. It's not that she doesn't love her kids & husband, but somehow in her mind, showing that would be weakness.

[choli]

I've never felt that my job as a parent is to make my kids 100% happy 100% of the time. Life is not like that. Any parent who has more than one kid can tell you that. I don't think it would be very beneficial for any kid to be the be all and end all of who gets to to be happy at the expense of the rest of the family.

My kids are teens, and they don't hate me, they've always known that families involve give and take between all members, not all give on the parent side and all take on the kid side.

[dahlialia]

I always try to view it as this: I am parenting how I feel is right, as much as I can, essentially for ME. Because I chose to have these kids, I chose the responsibility, and I would have a hard time living with my choices if I didn't also do the best I could to bring them up.

I also try to keep in mind that I am not doing it for a particular result. I hope that my daughters can take the best path for them in life. Whether that means hating me at 16, or 20, or 30, or moving half way round the world, or whatever, I'm ok with it. I don't need it to turn out a certain way for me to feel my effort was worth it. I don't even need them to know/understand all I've done "for them" because really I've done it for me. I do hope though they know the depths of my love for them.

This is in part, I suspect, a pendulum swing from my family of origin (a "perfect" family), where I was supposed to be the dutiful daughter forever enmeshed with my mom.

[HappilyEvrAfter]

Thanks for starting this thread...and for all those that posted responses.
It's really helped with some things I've been struggling with lately too.

[griffin2004]

There aren't any formulas for parenting, unfortunately. A very wise therapist told me early on in my parenting adventure that you can't control and aren't responsible for the "output" (how your child "turns out"). But you are responsible and can control the "input" (how you parent).

And really, would you be satisfied being less of a parent? I don't think you would be.

And to be completely transparent with you, "90% right" is amazing. I'm lucky if I hit 50% a couple of days in a row!!

[Wolfcat]

Originally Posted by fairejour

I feel like there are so many "nice" families who love their children with kids who hate them, or worse, on drugs or acting out....is there something that they are doing wrong that I can do right? Or is all just luck?

Appearances can be deceiving... Just cuz they LOOK like the perfect family doesn't mean they did parenting "right". Maybe they were emotionally abusive to their kids, or emotionally withdrawn from them.

[CI Mama]

I appreciate the OP's question and everyone's thoughtful responses.

One thing I've wondered about parenting since about Day 1 is, if I'm doing it right, should it feel good? If I'm a good mom (or at least a good enough mom), should I be having fun & enjoying myself & feeling good?

Because at first I sure as heck didn't. I had a long, difficult labor that left me completely exhausted and then I got a raging breast infection that took 12 weeks to clear up. So for the first 4 months of my DD's life I was basically a complete miserable wreck.

But I was doing "the right things" for her...I was breast feeding in spite of the infection, I was co-sleeping, prioritizing her needs, watching her grow & develop just beautifully. There was certainly joy in seeing her thrive, but it didn't take away my exhaustion & my feelings of being completely overwhelmed by everything.

And now that I'm further along on the journey (DD is 21 months now) and I feel so much better (getting adequate sleep most of the time, for example), I am enjoying myself a lot more. But I wouldn't say the balance of "doing things right" and "enjoying parenting" is quite even. I feel like I get it right 90% of the time, and I truly enjoy it 75% of the time. The other 25% of the time, I'm stressed out or tired or just wishing I could have my own life or at least sit still on the couch in the quiet for 10 minutes or whatever.

I think a lot about my mom, who died 12 years ago. She was an amazing parent, something that I didn't always know or appreciate, but boy do I see it now! And I remember a lot of the wonderful things she did for me, but what I cherish most are the times when I sensed that she was truly happy. I believe that parenting was her biggest joy in life (god knows it wasn't her marriage!) but with 4 kids to take care of and an unsupportive spouse, she was under a lot of stress. And yet she found ways to bring joy not only to us, but she often gave us the sense that making us happy made her truly happy, too. It has always seemed to me the creulest thing that she died before she had a chance to be a grandma, which I think is when you really get to do all the things that are great about parenting with your grand kids, and skip a lot of the hard stuff.

There may be women out there who are not only great parents but who have a blast parenting all the time. But I haven't met them yet.

Fairejour, I hope you're finding some joy in your life. Good luck!

[TulsiLeaf]

Ladies, even 50% on some days is good enough.

Today, for me, is one of those 45% days. I have a cold, I'm tired, my period just started.

Heck, I'm gonna be generous and say I am at 35%.