No one can quite define what a perfect mother would look like and yet we’re haunted daily by the feeling that whatever that perfection is, we’re not meeting it and that somehow we should. We are imperfect humans in an imperfect world and there’s nothing quite like mothering to remind us how far from perfect we are. In perhaps the first and only time we might strive to meet all of someone’s needs, both present and anticipated, we fail, over and over again. We see perfection in our child but not in our relationship, believing that we’re just not good enough.
In the 1950s, British paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott developed the image and concept of the ‘good enough’ mother which included the way she creates a ‘holding environment’ for her child. The term ‘good enough’ in particular can cause concern for mothers. They don’t want to be good enough, they want to be their best selves, believing that their child deserves that. If you say to someone that you’re good enough, it just means that you’re not excelling, you’ve somehow lowered your standards.
It’s important to understand what Winnicott and those who’ve since developed his theories and practices mean by ‘good enough’ because this simple image is so powerful – it’s healing, it’s human, and it’s supportive of the mother/child relationship.
A ‘good enough’ mother recognises that her relationship with her child is constantly changing. At the beginning she is her child’s world, as without her, her child wouldn’t last a day. She attempts to meet all of her child’s essential needs for nourishment, safety, cleanliness, warmth, emotional regulation and care.
As her child grows, mothering changes. It’s no longer helpful for her to meet all of her child’s needs. Apart from the fact that it’s impossible to do so, it’s incredibly disempowering to her child. How will they learn that they are their own person if their needs are never frustrated, if they never wonder why and never try to figure out how to get their own needs met? This rests on Winnicott’s idea that there are two vital conditions for good enough mothering:
- Providing security and love through primary relationship and,
- Helping our children develop their own sense of self, power, independence and experiencing of the world.
Built into the ‘good enough’ mother image is an understanding that growing children benefit from mothering that doesn’t always fulfill their every need, even if sometimes they really want you to fix that broken beloved toy and they let you know it.
We can evolve the ‘good enough’ image from its roots in the 1950s to acknowledge that mothers are individuals not solely oriented toward their children. They come into being as mothers through that relationship but that does not mean they lose their own needs, emotional responses or identity as mothers alone.
As human beings we might act from a place of anger, resentment, ambivalence, need or fear that may or may not have anything to do with our child. Being ‘good enough’ doesn’t mean we always navigate the fragile line between meeting and not meeting our child’s needs perfectly. It’s bigger than that. ‘Good enough’ includes mothering that might strive for the best quite often but might also slip and fall, place primacy on our own needs (including those arising from the mother/child relationship) and might result in a negative outcome for our children at times.
Sometimes we miss the mark. We offer a quick cuddle and move on when what our child wanted was something else, but we’re preoccupied with cooking dinner, scheduling a meeting, or pondering our own pain. Sometimes we miss our child’s momentary need completely: they’re upset with their brother in the back of the car, and we can’t sort it out for them because we’re trying not to end up in a road accicdent. The point is that our children benefit from knowing that occasionally, and more so as they mature, they have to find ways to meet their own needs. This is a sliding and everchanging scale of needs navigation for mothers and children. The kids aren’t left out in the dark, but they’re also not held so tightly they don’t get to bask in the sunshine.
The relationship with mother remains as a place of safety, a ‘holding environment’ rather than a place of rigidity or constraint. The child can progressively move out into the world, experience themselves in it and then return to mum, bringing the experience back to their relationship. Most of the time, they will feel supportively held by her presence. For example, a baby screams in discomfort with gas trapped in their stomach, their mother kisses them, speaks softly and bicycles their little legs, easing a decent fart out. A teenager fails an important test and feels crap about themselves. Mum briefly tables her anxiety about what this means, gives them a favourite snack or puts on their favourite music. She may talk about it with them if they’re open to it and/or offer to help. The possible difficulties that arise for kids and their needs management are endless. The mother’s responses in these examples are all forms of holding: physical, psychological and emotional. They are acts of mothering that occur within the holding environment created by and for mother and child.
The child’s ability to reach out to their mother also creates their holding environment. Both contribute to what it is to be a ‘good enough’ mother or as I like to think of it, a ‘good enough’ mother and child ‘us’.
Being good enough isn’t being ‘less than’, it’s about recognising and building real human relationship into the mother/child bond because no real human relationship is ever perfect. Being good enough is about being able to:
- Progressively move from meeting all of our child’s needs to nurturing their own ability to meet their needs in the world,
- Adapt to changing needs within a changing relationship,
- Identify and meet some of our own needs outside of the relationship and our identity as a mother,
- Slip, falter, make mistakes and occasionally lose it at our kid without catastrophising and defining ourselves as bad mothers or children as bad kids,
- Repair our relationship after painful moments acknowledging that relationships are messy,
- Accept that we are never the absolute centre of someone else’s universe nor should we be, even if it feels like our child is the sun we orbit on a daily basis,
- Accept that in our imperfection and our other identities as lover, child, worker, visionary, whatever it is, we can still offer real love to our child and receive real love from them.
Imagine a child whose every need from the day they were born has been met by their mother. Would they cope in the world of school, work, or adult relationships? How frustrated and disappointed would they be in friendships and love if their mother embodied perfection? Everything and everyone afterward would be a devastating let down. And what is considered perfection for you as a mother may not actually be what your relationship needs in that moment.
I’m not saying any of this is easy. I hate feeling like I’ve let my son down and in their teen years kids aren’t so shy about letting you know that you’ve let them down either. Something that sounds really obvious but that is working for me at the moment is recognising that what my child means to me is not what I mean to him.
While I might worry about how he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, what he’s doing, where he’s going, who he’s going with and what the long-term implications of that might be for his wellbeing, he’s not doing the same. If I’ve been a 'good enough' mother then to a great extent my child will take my love for granted, it’s the air he’s always breathed. Despite or perhaps because of our ups and downs, he knows I’m there and he’s loved.
Loved kids don’t need to worry about what they’re parents are doing/thinking/feeling or the long-term implications of that. They’re busy getting on with their lives knowing they have a secure base to return to when they need it. As he matures, I keep my arms literally and metaphorically open, so that holding environment is there. My arms may be loose or tight depending on what is needed in the moment. Sometimes I'll be preoccupied with myself and my arms won't be available for him but they're open enough on average that he knows if he really needs them, we'll figure it out. I do my best to keep my arms open for a few reasons. It’s a part of supporting our relationship in a responsive way but it’s also a recognition that I have needs; I like mothering, I like being around my son, I like our relationship and want it to continue even as he grows up and eventually leaves home.
Far from perfect, the ‘good enough’ mother and mother/child relationship is a deeply realistic, flawed, sometimes glorious, sometimes despairing, ever changing thing of love, The good enough ‘us’ allows both mother and child room to breathe and grow, to navigate needs and adapt, to be profoundly human.
This post is written by Dr Ariel Moy. She is passionate about developing mother/child relationships, she has a private practice as a creative arts therapist, is a Professional member of ANZACATA and is an academic teacher at The MIECAT Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
Comments