being a good enough mother

So this morning I read this on the thinking mom's blog and it hit a nice spot for me...  Its nice to know that my chant of "teaching resilience, teaching resilience" has sound theoretical basis... I am not the perfect parent I thought I would be.  My kid cries, tantrums, has to deal with me "failing" to meet her every wish.  I am not the perfect parent in many ways - I am not organic, I let her have sugar, I let her watch DVD's and I am not always consistent - sometimes I just do what is easiest.  Sometimes I let her eat hot chips twice a day because its easier than battling over food she won't eat.

I can only trust that in the end - she is a very head strong and capable child, and she will make her own decisions regardless of what I do.  I am a good enough mother... and thats all I can do at this point as I continue to model to her that its ok to follow your dreams and be imperfect along the way.

In a nut-shell and in Winnicott's own words:

A mother is neither good nor bad nor the product of illusion, but is a separate and independent entity: The good-enough mother .. starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant's needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant's growing ability to deal with her failure. Her failure to adapt to every need of the child helps them adapt to external realities.

The failure Winnicott refers to is not specific to bad things that mothers do that damage their children, but instead, the perception of the child as the child grows and develops that Mom is no longer able to "fix" everything or make it all better. No parent can ever meet every single need of a child from the child's point of view. If this were true, the toddler temper tantrum would not exist. Think about those states of mind kids get into with the dramatic mood swings and crazy demands. No way in freaking hell that those whims should be catered to by a parent, hence the concept of a parent's "failure."