Why Our Kids Need Connection, Not Perfection

By Erinbell Fanore — GUEST COLUMN

“It only takes a good enough parent” to raise a child, said Winnicott, a British paediatrician and psychoanalyst. I remember reading that many years back and breathing out a huge sigh of relief. Good enough. I can do that.

Our childhood years are such formative ones. We learn so much implicitly. We take on our family’s and society’s spoken and unspoken ways. Then we become adults and it becomes our responsibility to make sense of ourselves: how we are the ways that we are and our roles in our family, in relationships, and in society. It’s a lot to get to know.

And if we chose to have kids, there is a pressure to do it right. To give our kids the best formative years possible. Perfect years. Yet perfect isn’t possible and fortunately not needed.

So what do I need to give my kids? To paraphrase Sarah Powers, “less baggage than we got.” I love the simplicity of this idea. I think of my mother and how she did that for me. Her childhood was rough. Her father was an abusive alcoholic. But her mother was good enough. Her mother wasn’t able to provide a shiny place full of love, but she gave my mom enough love. Enough love that my mom could take that, move across the country and raise her own kids with a fierce sense of always being loved.