Being a Good Enough Parent: What’s It Like?

The first year of life with a desired and long-awaited child turned out to be a nightmare for 35-year-old Natalya. She felt a colossal responsibility: “Sure! After all, I was already an adult and read many books about conscious motherhood, I knew so much about upbringing that my parents did not know! I just had no right to be a bad mother!

But from the very first day everything went wrong. My daughter cried a lot, and I could not quickly put her to bed, I was annoyed with her and angry with myself. The mother-in-law added heat: “What did you want? I got used to thinking only about myself, and now you are a mother and forget about yourself.

I suffered terribly. At night I called the helpline and sobbed that I couldn’t cope, my daughter is already a month old, and I still don’t distinguish the shades of her crying, which means that I have a bad connection with her and she, through my fault, will not have basic trust in the world ! In the morning, I called a friend in another city and said: I am such an inept mother that the child would be much better off without me.

Seven years later, Natalya believes that she managed to survive only thanks to the chat of young mothers and the support of a psychotherapist: “Now I understand that this year was made hell by my overestimated, unrealistic demands on myself, which were supported by the myth that motherhood is only happiness and joy.»

Lots of knowledge lots of sadness

It would seem that modern mothers have received complete freedom: only they themselves decide how to raise children. Information resources are endless: books on education are full of shops, articles and lectures — the Internet. But much knowledge does not bring peace, but confusion.

Between care and excessive guardianship, kindness and connivance, instruction and imposition, there is a barely noticeable border that a parent should constantly feel, but how? Am I still democratic in my demands or am I putting pressure on the child? By purchasing this toy, will I satisfy his need or spoil him? By letting me quit music, am I indulging his laziness, or showing respect for his true desires?

In an attempt to give their child a happy childhood, parents try to combine conflicting recommendations and feel that they are only moving away from the image of the ideal mom and dad.

“The question is: for whom do we want to be the best? — notes psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova. — One mother hopes to prove something to her close circle, and the other actually dreams of becoming an ideal mother for herself and transfers her own thirst for love, which was so lacking in childhood, to the relationship with the child. But if there is no personal experience of a trusting relationship with the mother, and its deficit is great, in the care of the child there is an anguish and operationality — external, active care.

Then the woman tries to ensure that the child is fed and cared for, but loses real contact with him. In the eyes of those around her, she is an ideal mother, but one on one with a child she can break loose, and then she blames herself. Distinguishing between guilt and responsibility is another challenge parents face all the time.

To be near…how much?

The maturation and development of the child depends entirely on the mother, according to Melanie Klein, who stood at the origins of child psychoanalysis. This idea, reinforced by attachment researcher John Bowlby, has become so firmly established in our minds that psychologist Donald Winnicott’s attempt to free women from the burden of overwhelming responsibility (he declared that a «good enough» and «ordinary devoted» mother is suitable for a child) has not met with much success. Women have new questions for themselves: what is the measure of this sufficiency? Am I as good as required?

“Winnicott talked about the natural ability of the mother to feel the baby and satisfy his needs, and this does not require special knowledge,” explains Svetlana Fedorova. “When a woman is in contact with a child, she intuitively responds to his signals.”

Thus, the first condition of «goodness» is simply to be physically near the baby, not to disappear for too long, to respond to his call and need for comfort or food, and thus provide him with predictability, stability and security.

Another condition is the presence of a third. “Saying that a mother should have a personal life, Winnicott had in mind the sexual relationship between the mother and father of the child,” the psychoanalyst continues, “but in fact it is not so much sex that is important as the presence of another modality of relations, partnerships or friendships. In the absence of a partner, the mother gets almost all her bodily pleasure from physical communication with the baby: feeding, aunting, hugging. An atmosphere is created in which the child becomes, as it were, a substitute for a sexual object and runs the risk of being «caught» by the mother’s libido.

Up to six months, the child needs almost constant mother’s care, but separation should gradually occur. The child finds other ways of comfort besides the mother’s breast, transitional objects (songs, toys) that allow him to distance himself and build his own psyche. And he needs our … mistakes.

Failure is the key to success

Studying the interaction of mothers with babies aged 6 to 9 months, the American psychologist Edward Tronick calculated that the mother “synchronizes” with the child only in 30% of cases and correctly reads his signals (fatigue, discontent, hunger). This encourages the child to invent ways to overcome the discrepancy between his request and the mother’s reaction: he tries to get her attention, calm down on his own, get distracted.

These early experiences lay the foundation for self-regulation and coping skills. Moreover, trying to protect the child from disappointments and displeasures, the mother paradoxically impedes his development.

“It is impossible to immediately understand the reason why a baby is crying,” emphasizes Svetlana Fedorova, “but a mother with an ideal mindset cannot wait, she offers an unmistakable option: her breast or pacifier. And he thinks: he calmed down, I’m done! She did not allow herself to look for other solutions and as a result imposed a rigid scheme on the child: food is the solution to any problem.

This is what Winnicott wrote about: “There comes a time when it becomes necessary for the child that the mother should “fail” in her efforts to adapt to him.” By not responding to every signal of the infant, by not doing everything that he asks, the mother satisfies his much more important need — to develop the ability to cope with disappointment, gain stability and independence.

Know thyself

Even knowing that our pedagogical mistakes will not destroy children, we ourselves suffer from them. “When my mother yelled at me as a child because of untidy toys or bad grades, I thought: how terrible, I will never behave this way with my child in my life,” Oksana, 34, admits. “But I’m not far from my mother: the children don’t get along, they fight, each one demands his own, I’m torn between them and constantly break down.”

“But it is necessary to make such attempts,” notes Svetlana Fedorova, “or, at least, to be aware of our anger and fear as belonging to us, and not coming from outside, and to understand what they are connected with.”

The ability to take oneself into account is the main skill, the possession of which determines the position of an adult and the ability to resolve conflicts, says existential psychologist Svetlana Krivtsova: try to catch the inner logic of his words, actions and interests. And then a truth unique to this situation can be born between a child and an adult.

Talking honestly with yourself, being interested in children, and trying to understand them—with no guarantee of success—is what makes relationships alive and our parenthood an experience of personal development, not just a social function.

Beyond the distance — beyond

The child grows, and parents have more and more reasons to doubt their competence. “I can’t force him to study during the holidays”, “the whole house is littered with educational games, and he sits in gadgets”, “she is so capable, she shone in elementary grades, and now she abandoned her studies, but I didn’t insist, I missed the moment” .

To instill a love for reading/music/sports, go to college and get a promising specialty… We unwittingly, inevitably fantasize about the future of children and set high goals for ourselves (and for them). And we reproach ourselves (and them) when everything does not turn out the way we wanted.

“The desire of parents to develop the child’s abilities, to provide him with a better future, to teach everything that they themselves can do, as well as the hope of seeing worthy results of their efforts, are completely natural, but … unrealistic,” comments family psychologist Dina Magnat. — Because the child has individual characteristics and his own will, and his interests can drastically diverge from those of his parents.

Therefore, I would call a good enough mother who simply prepares the child for an independent life. It requires the ability to build healthy close relationships and make decisions, earn money and be responsible for your own children.”

What helps a child, and then a teenager, to learn all this? Experience of trusting relationships with parents, according to age, at all stages of growing up. When they give freedom according to their strength and support according to need; when they see, hear and understand. This is what a good parent is. The rest is details, and they can be very different.