AIBU to think we don't have to be perfect parents?

[brasty]

Actually I know I am not. But generally we all try our best. We don't have to try and be perfect. And we won't be anyway. We just need to be good enough.

Everyone's definition of perfect is different anyway. I will always try my hardest to be the best parent I can, I don't want to be just 'good enough' tbh. Although my best isn't as good as some other people's I'm sure, but I'm ok with that

Well even if we did need to be its never going to happen. You can only do your best. No one asks for more than that

There isn't a perfect parent because nobody is perfect.

No such thing as a perfect parent. Yesterday I was doing maths practice with my daughter, today we are watching the Lego Ninja movie 😂 it’s called balance!!

I am allergic to housework.
But I load the dishwasher and do the washing.
I cook sometimes (and sometimes from the freezer)

I put my daughter in nursery young, I will put my son into childcare younger
I have my own reasons for this, one of them being my education and career goals
Another being my mental health

I have anxiety
And see a counsellor once a week to moan about my life
I shout at my DP sometimes

Sometimes I pay all my bills
Sometimes they build up and I pay them off when the red letters start coming thick and fast

Sometimes I am really pushy
If my daughter falls asleep without brushing her teeth I wake her up to brush them
Sometimes I send her to bed without any dinner

One was breast fed, the other bottle fed.

I don’t feel guilty about any of these choices.

I think that not only is it not necessary, I don't think it's even preferable to be a perfect parent. Children wouldn't get a good breadth of experience of trying/ failing/ apologising/ trying some more if they had perfect parents. How are you meant to navigate through life not knowing how to make do and patch shit up behind you?

Depends what you mean by perfect?

I do my best. I don't think we can do more than that.

I bring my children up to be self-sufficient and independent and capable of thinking for themselves and making the right decisions.

I would hope that this will be enough to survive the world.

Don't get me wrong, I do the cooking, washing, I am the taxi driver and I have done the bedtime reading, the listening, the caring, the wiping of blood and tears, I have held hair when they are being sick and cuddled them. I have got up in the night without complaint when they need me.

But ultimately it's my job to get them to adulthood as self sufficient humans with a good moral compass and an ability to cope with life.

Maybe I'm being really U, but I find the 'no parent is perfect' thing a bit annoying.

No parent deliberately does a bad job. But some parents DO do a bad job.

If you experience an unhappy/neglectful/abusive childhood, the parent(s) may well have been doing the very best they were capable of, but that "best" was insufficient.

Or (more likely) the parent didn't actually do their best - they did what was easiest for them, or half-arsed their best, or did their best sometimes, but not always. But when/if questioned, they will claim to have "done their best" and squawk that you are demanding "perfection".

So I guess what I mean is that;
a) there is a minimum standard of parenting, and that is outcome-based, not effort-based. So if a parent does their best, and their best is not good enough, then they were still a not-good-enough parent.

b) Parenting is NOT divided into "doing my best" and "unrealistic standards of perfection". Those aren't the only two options.

If you are a parent, and there are areas you feel you could improve on, it is OK to act on that feeling and make changes to your parenting. the thing is, as soon as a parent ventures to say "I feel maybe I'm not a good enough parent" everyone hastens to say "OMG you're brilliant, just do your best, no one's perfect" because there's such a strong taboo against criticising anyone's parenting or implying that parents aren't all 100% amazing superheroes.

Maybe I'm being really U, but I find the 'no parent is perfect' thing a bit annoying

Facts are annoying? No parent IS perfect, it's the truth. The rest of your post is about effort and being good enough, nothing that contradicts the fact that no parent is perfect.

Yes I don't use it as an excuse. Just find the levels of judgement on here depressing sometimes, over things like breast/formula, age you use pram till, etc.
Of course how you talk to and treat your child is important.

Yanbu, kids need to see you make a mistake and deal with fixing it. They need to see us handle an apology, fall over, & embarrass ourselves. Then learn by example, not lectures.

Facts are annoying?

Ha, no, I think you have (deliberately?) misunderstood me.

The thing I find annoying is trotting out "no parent is perfect" as a catch-all to excuse poor parenting.

Since it is (as you point out) impossible for a parent to be "perfect" reminding everyone of that seems redundant. If someone is not a good-enough parent, then saying "well, what do you expect from them - PERFECTION???" seems to me to sweep the real issue under the rug, viz. that even if perfection is unachievable, BETTER parenting might be.

Since it is (as you point out) impossible for a parent to be "perfect" reminding everyone of that seems redundant.

I don't think that's true. I think now, more than ever, parents (actually I think this may be specific to mothers) are under pressure or perhaps putting themselves under pressure to execute a perfect childhood.

You can find evidence of that here, where even the smallest of parenting fails are presented for scorn and judgement. From sleep training/ not sleep training, taking your 10yo to school/ letting them go themselves, using a dummy/ refusing dummies, everything is thrown under the microscope as if one false move will be the thing that ruined your child forever.

Since it is...impossible for a parent to be "perfect" reminding everyone of that seems redundant

I think you're looking at it entirely wrongly. It's not the awful parents saying noone is perfect, they generally don't care enough to reassure themselves.
It's the ones struggling to be perfect because they think other people expect it of them that say it, to try and make themselves feel a little better.

It's the ones struggling to be perfect because they think other people expect it of them that say it, to try and make themselves feel a little better

I don't think that's true. I think now, more than ever, parents (actually I think this may be specific to mothers) are under pressure or perhaps putting themselves under pressure to execute a perfect childhood

Yeah, I see what you mean - in that situation, it is good and helpful to be reminded that perfection is not required, or even possible.