{"id":1502,"date":"2013-06-28T20:37:41","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T00:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.positivelyparenting.com\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2015-12-04T12:48:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T17:48:53","slug":"you-are-not-a-good-enough-parent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/parenting\/you-are-not-a-good-enough-parent\/","title":{"rendered":"You are not a “good enough” parent."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lately, I have been reading a lot of parenting blogs that are focused on being \u201cgood enough.\u201d<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

You yell at your kids, all of the time?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s okay.\u00a0 That\u2019s good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You feed your kids frozen pizza five out of seven days of the week, pretty much all of the time?\u00a0 That\u2019s okay!\u00a0 That\u2019s good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You sit and stare into your iPhone while your kids play at the park, day in and day out?\u00a0 No worries, that\u2019s good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Your child spills his energy drink into his iPad during his fourth hour of play?\u00a0 That\u2019s fine; that\u2019s good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Your child does four hundred activities, twelve months out of the year, leaving him exhausted and you half-crazed with the driving:\u00a0 good enough!\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Your child watches TV before bed, every single night.\u00a0 Good enough.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Your child eats more sugar and artificial ingredients than you would ever admit to?\u00a0 Good \u2018nuff<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Your children fight to the death some days, and you go hide in the car?\u00a0 Good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want to host play dates because you don\u2019t want to watch your own kids, let alone anyone else\u2019s.\u00a0 Good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You go to bed exhausted, angry, lonely, and anxious about your parenting?\u00a0 That\u2019s cool.\u00a0 It\u2019s just\u00a0good enough.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The more I read, the more my head spins.<\/p>\n

It head spins from this idea:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI am telling the world how I think I suck as a parent, but don\u2019t judge me…it is good enough<\/i>.\u201d<\/b><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Frankly, I don\u2019t care about much of what people judge as \u201cgood enough.\u201d\u00a0 Everyone is going to probably damage their kid\u2019s psyche somehow, so beyond beating and shaming him or her, I withhold judgment about much else you do as a parent.<\/p>\n

What I care about is this strange pride in shouting out your suffering, like a bizarre badge of dishonor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do moms really care about serving frozen pizza, four nights in a row?\u00a0 I don\u2019t.\u00a0 And if you really do care, then stop telling people you are good enough<\/i> and cook some real food.<\/p>\n

Do moms really care if they yelled in the parking lot once this week?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you are a bad mom.\u00a0 Or do you yell until you are hoarse, every single night?\u00a0 You know<\/i> that this life of constant yelling, well, it is not good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And do you really<\/i> care that you are too tired to fake the smile at fifteenth red circle drawn by your four year old?\u00a0 Or are you so tired that everything is drudgery, but you are labeling it as good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t feel badly for working when I am in the park with my kids.\u00a0 I tell them I need to work and I answer e-mails.\u00a0 And when I consciously spend time with them, I don\u2019t look at my phone.\u00a0 That is not good enough<\/em>.\u00a0 That is good. \u00a0<\/i>That is fine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>And when, two months ago, my husband and I had lost it one too many times with one of our children, we called our<\/em> parent coach and said, \u201chelp.\u201d\u00a0 <\/b>That yelling, that fighting, that anger, it was not good enough.\u00a0 <\/i>We needed to work on it<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How about we (me included<\/i>) stop flying our fake flags of failure and have two categories: \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cneeds work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personally, I am all \u201cgood\u201d with setting boundaries.\u00a0 I \u201cneed work\u201d with celebrating and remembering to smile.\u00a0 Boom.\u00a0 Done.\u00a0 I know I need to smile more.\u00a0 I am not going to continue to grimace and tell everyone it is good enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>I really don\u2019t think you have to call yourself good enough<\/i> anymore.\u00a0 Frankly, I think that is a crappy way to parent and live.\u00a0 It minimizes the good<\/span> you do, and it gives you a free pass to be a miserable parent when you know<\/i> you need to take responsibility for your behavior and get it together.<\/b><\/p>\n

If being a \u201cgood enough\u201d parent means a faux acceptance of poor parenting behaviors and a disavowal of the good parenting choices, than that is not good enough. \u00a0That is treading water.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/b>And another thing (she hollers from her soap box)!\u00a0 I don\u2019t hear dads referring to themselves<\/i>\u00a0as good enough.\u00a0 My husband virtually sends himself flowers for dressing all three of the kids.\u00a0 Men seem to be generally good<\/i>.\u00a0 Maybe they could stand a parenting tune-up here and there, but I want Moms to stop it with the good enough<\/i>.\u00a0 It\u2019s enough already.<\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, I have been reading a lot of parenting blogs that are focused on being \u201cgood enough.\u201d   You yell at your kids, all of the time?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s okay.\u00a0 That\u2019s good enough. You feed your kids frozen pizza five out of seven days of the week, pretty much all of the time?\u00a0 That\u2019s okay!\u00a0 That\u2019s good enough. You sit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nYou are not a "good enough" parent. - Meghan Leahy Parent Coach<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/parenting\/you-are-not-a-good-enough-parent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You are not a "good enough" parent. - Meghan Leahy Parent Coach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lately, I have been reading a lot of parenting blogs that are focused on being \u201cgood enough.\u201d   You yell at your kids, all of the time?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s okay.\u00a0 That\u2019s good enough. 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