The perfectly good book report

I miss the good old days when I could sit down and read a book cover to cover. These days, I can’t read more than 15 minutes without either dozing off or having to get up to tend to the baby. Once I finally caught on that I could read and nurse, I was set. Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box is one I’ll want to keep on the shelf for a few years.

If you find yourself forgetting which stop comes next – karate, ballet, Spanish lessons – then this is your book. Psychologist Ann Dunnewold challenges extreme parenting and puts forth the idea of a perfectly good mom. “The extreme mom gives her all 200 percent of the time…believes that the ideal motherhood involves total absorption in her child’s life.”

The alternative sounds much more doable. “The perfectly good mother is available to her children. She is loving, interested, involved. She knows that she cannot give her all to her kids without some cost to herself…She is human. She gets tired, she makes mistakes, sometimes she yells…The perfectly good mom is able to say wholeheartedly that she is doing a perfectly acceptable job.”

“The generation of mothers that walks into my office simply is driven by anxiety: anxiety about parenting perfectly, worry about others’ judgments if they don’t “do it right,” angst about screwing up their kids.” I’ll admit, though I’m not yet signing up for Gymboree or Kindermusik, I’m the first to obsess about how what I’m going to do that will send Marielle to therapy one day. What irreversible harm will be linked back to me? Dunnewold gives moms permission to lose their temper, put themselves first once in awhile, and to be human.

“Your perfect self thinks you need to take your children to the park, while the self-preservation voice in your head wants you to collapse in front of Oprah. As you go the distance, a balance between these two is required.” Again, I will need to revisit this book in a few years, but so far our Oprah to park ratio is well over 50:1. Perhaps I should aim for a little more park time…well, maybe when Oprah is in reruns.

Dunnewold suggests connecting with like minded moms - moms who are relaxed and respect that everyone makes the best choices for their family. “Perfectly good mothers don’t judge or criticize other mothers.” This is something I work on constantly. I have been having an ongoing conversation in my head for months about not judging other moms’ choices. I am determined to live this way, yet my reflexes always lead me in the opposite direction. (If you see me wandering the streets of DC muttering to myself “don’t judge, don’t judge” just throw some ice water in my face to snap me out of it.)

Every week since Marielle was born I have promised myself I’m going to get my act together and go to one of the mommy support group at the local hospital or Y. And every week when that morning comes I decide that sleep, work, or something on Tivo is more valuable than time spent connecting with other moms. Perhaps I know that besides just “support” I might also be throwing myself into the competitive world of parenting.

I often sarcastically proclaim myself “Mother of the Year!” when I do something to make Marielle cry, like last week when I dropped the cordless phone on her head. Twice. But in my world, a day without a trip to the ER is a successful day. 5 months of success and counting. Somehow that doesn’t seem like a sentiment that would go over in any sort of mommy support group.

In my ideal world, this book with come with a set of magnets of Dunnewold phrases to plaster around my house as constant reminders. My favorite would be: “A basic rule of perfectly good mothering is that only you and your family can judge what works for you.” Actually, I would put that on my front door. The magnet on my fridge would say, “Are you within basic legal standards of good care? Not neglecting your children? Then only your opinion matters.” Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to see how Marielle enjoyed the last hour of Oprah.

If my lazy mommy won't drive me to tryouts for the traveling soccer team, I'll just drive myself.