It was a Tuesday morning. The house was a mess and Kennedy and I needed to be somewhere 5 minutes ago. The cat had just thrown up in the corner at the exact second the puppy peed on the floor. I’m pretty sure Kennedy was only half dressed and singing the same lyrics to Let It Go over and over. My husband wouldn’t be home until after bedtime and my coffee was cold and untouched. My world felt like chaos. A mess. Absolute insanity. I wanted order. I wanted cleanliness. I wanted the dogs to listen and for my child to just get her pants on already! In that moment, I just wanted a single morning where everything went perfectly. I wanted to be the perfect parent with the perfect house who was always perfectly on time. I just wanted perfection.
Then, Kennedy walked up to me with the biggest smile on her face holding a bracelet she made for me out of toilet paper. It was beautiful. I snapped back to reality. Who knew that a little piece of twisted toilet paper could remind me that there is no perfect. In fact, it is in those imperfect moments of chaos that we receive some of the best gifts in life.
Here’s the thing: I’m a perfectionist. For as long as I can remember, I’ve placed an undue amount of pressure on myself to be the very best at all I do. I don’t know if it was because I moved every two years as a child and needed to “prove” myself and stand out to the newest set of peers. Or maybe it was the chaos of having a chronic illness as a kid that created a need to control everything I could. Perhaps I was just born that way. My parents tried so hard to convince me that I in no way needed to be perfect, but I wouldn’t shake those expectations I placed on myself. I don’t know what I expected would happen once I was “perfect”, but I did everything I could to try and find out.
Even the simplest mistakes were unacceptable in my book. My self-worth was based completely on performance and the image I projected to the world. If I wasn’t doing my best, then I felt completely out of control. And I hated feeling out of control. So I’d do everything I could to control my environment- my grades, my achievements, my body- I’d fixate on what I could make “perfect” so that all the chaos I felt in my head would temporarily feel manageable. It didn’t matter if it meant spending hours practicing whatever sport I was playing or copying a textbook word for word to commit it to memory so I maintained my straight A’s. I would forgo sleep and socializing to ensure that I felt in control of something.
Sure, working so hard at everything you do can be beneficial. However, when you are a perfectionist, it can often be detrimental. I saw the world in black and white, all or nothing. If I wasn’t “perfect”, then I must be a complete failure. And since perfection is an unachievable concept, I was often beating myself up over the smallest things. There was no gray area in my life, no room for mistakes. It’s hard to live a life striving for something that isn’t achievable. It’s exhausting. I was good at moving or changing jobs if I started to burn out where I currently was, but that’s not a lifetime solution to avoiding your own flaws. I dreamed of marriage and a family and I knew burning out on those was not a possibility. I made some huge life changes and worked on shifting my mind frame around perfection. I fell in love and married my amazing husband, a journey in and of itself that showed me I am in no way perfect. And then I became a parent. Oh how quickly I learned that there is no room for perfectionism in parenting. In fact, becoming a mom has taught me that embracing imperfection and not fixating on the uncontrollable is the only way to survive this crazy journey called parenthood!
My pregnancy with Kennedy was anything but perfect. And even when she was born and I was holding the most incredible little baby, I struggled big time. Her being a high needs baby coupled with my post-partum anxiety (and don’t forget the lack of sleep and hormones) made everything feel so out of control. And as you know, I hate feeling out of control. However, for the first time in my life I couldn’t practice, or study, or run that feeling away. There was no book to memorize that would help me be the perfect mom. There was no skill to master that would help me know exactly what to do every second of the day. Nope, I had to trip and fall and pick my unshowered self up over and over again. That need to control had to be shoved away. I couldn’t make Kennedy nap, I couldn’t make Kennedy meet a milestone by xyz date- I just had to be along for the ride and try to be the mom Kennedy needed. It didn’t take me long to realized that the mom Kennedy needed was just me, raw and real me. She didn’t care what my resume said or what size jean I was, she just needed me– imperfections and all.
For the last 3+ years, I have been practicing imperfect parenting. I’ve been embracing the craziness of motherhood so that I don’t miss out on the memories. I’ve learned I cannot control the chaos, and I don’t want to. That would mean Kennedy wouldn’t be free to be herself, and even in those icky moments filled with meltdowns and sass, I wouldn’t change anything about her. It’s hard as a perfectionist to not want to jump in and “fix” something on her most recent masterpiece or not get frustrated when she’s doing something that drives me nuts. But I know that my underlying need for things to be one way or another is my issue. I need to constantly be working on myself so that I don’t pass my expectations of myself onto my daughter. Everything that makes up Kennedy is everything that I love about her, and I never want her to feel like she needs to be yet another thing that her mom wants to be “perfect.”
So, goodbye control, goodbye perfection. I can try my best, but some days I fall so short. My house is often a mess, my hair is rarely out of a ponytail, and boy oh boy do I have days I wish I could redo. In a “perfect” world, I’d never get frustrated with my amazing little girl. I’d be as calm as Daniel Tiger’s mom and never crack after a day full of endless demands. Everything she touched would be organic and she’d never see an iPad screen. I’d have those Pinterest crafts ready and would greet every 5am wake up with a smile instead of my usual pleading to go back to sleep. She’d never see my weaknesses; she’d never see me make mistakes. And maybe in theory that sounds nice, but Kennedy also wouldn’t get to see the real me. I have flaws, I make mistakes, and I am nowhere near perfect. And guess what? She doesn’t care, she just loves me because I’m me.
On the days that I see my perfectionism start to sneak out, I step back and remind myself that it’s ok for life to be messy. I am no less of a mom because I cannot achieve everything in a 24 hour time period. My child does not deem me unworthy because dinner consisted of a frozen lasagna. I am still lovable even if I had one of those cranky mom moments where I didn’t want to answer the same question for the 600th time. I can only hope that owning up to my mistakes and apologizing shows Kennedy that she too can make mistakes and the world won’t end. I will still love her unconditionally, through every bump and fall there is. When I see those perfectionist tendencies start to sneak out, I ask myself why I’m itching for control. Am I scared or anxious about something? Do I feel disconnected, sad, or stressed? Occasionally there is something bigger going on and a trip to therapy is in store, but more often than not I just need a little extra alone time or a coffee date with my husband or friend. Whatever it is, the energy that I used to put into “being perfect” is no longer worth it. Not for my own mental health and not for my daughters. I will take a life of memories filled with mess, chaos, mistakes, and failures over the stress of perfection any day. For me, being an imperfect parent is actually just right.
