“You’re either IN or you’re OUT”

Relationships are hard work. They are high maintenance. Like a garden needs water and sun, relationships need communication, sex, empathy, etc. When you’re newly together and deeply in love, it seems there’s a constant release of oxytocin in your brain. Even thinking about the other person gives you a rush. You’re so high on love that you can get through anything. Eventually, you figure each other out for the most part. He’s heard you fart. You’ve tried all each other’s favorites. As time goes on, you need environmental changes to challenge your relationship and bring you close (traveling, having children, etc.). You might go through times where you rely on other things and people to get you through your relationship. A total 180 from how it all started. This is normal. This is okay. Things ebb and flow. In fact, things are probably going to suck sometimes. No one ever promised you a rose garden. You’re going to have to find your way through the weeds. Blindfolded. With monkeys on your back. 

There have been a few times in my life when someone has said something to me that I will never, ever forget for as long as I live. And if I do forget, I have them written down. One of these times was the Friday before April school vacation a few years ago. A bunch of my beloved Community Therapeutic Day School friends and I were out celebrating a well deserved break from work with a couple (pitchers!) of margaritas. We were talking about relationships, like ya do, especially a bunch of therapists. A few of us were fairly recently married (no kids yet) and one of us, though she looks 25, was in her 40s and had been married for many years with two kids in their late teens. She’s an incredible, self-aware, all-around wonderful person. A life mentor. A guru. And she’d been through some serious stuff. So, you take her seriously and listen closely to anything she has to say. That night, as three of us noobs were talking about how marriages take a lot of hard work, our guru said something that will stick with me forever. “At the end of the day, you’re either in or you’re out.” Those simple words put it all into perspective. 

There are going to be months, maybe even years, that your relationship is challenged. There will be equally long stretches of time where your relationship is blissful and moving along like a well-oiled machine. This is life. And like life itself, nothing in it is ever permanent. The bad times aren’t permanent. Neither are the good. So, think about it…are you in or are you out? If you’re “out,” forgive and exit with grace. People and relationships change, as everything does. What was a good fit might no longer be and there’s nothing wrong with discovering that and moving on. If you’re “in” and things aren’t working right now, talk about it, name it, accept it. Work your way through the weeds. You’re both responsible, no matter how much it’s the other person’s fault :) Communication is the key.

Are you IN or are you OUT?

The Good Enough Mother

Mother’s Day is this weekend and the stores are chock full of all those ridiculous, over the top Hallmark Cards with flowers and hummingbirds and sweet-nothings written inside. Maybe I’m pessimistic, but I bet most people don’t believe half the words in the cards they give to their moms. I always go with humor because it feels slightly more authentic. This year is my second Mother’s Day as a mom and I’m choosing to celebrate the idea of the “good enough” mother. From the second you deliver your baby (heck, the second you get knocked up!), there’s a whole lot of pressure to be the mom that the Mother’s Day cards say you are. Maybe it’s self-imposed pressure because you think you should be a certain way, maybe it’s coming from your own mother, or maybe you’ve read too much in US Weekly about Kate Middleton. The media’s portrayal of the Duchess of Cambridge’s motherhood is a fantasy. She’s not even a real Princess, she’s a Duchess! The reality is…Kate is not a Hallmark card mom. Neither am I and neither are you. The other reality…we don’t need to be.

Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician in England and later became a psychoanalyst and consultant who worked a lot with parents and children in the 1950s. He is the father of the term “good-enough mother.” Through his work, Winnicott saw that children were best able to learn and adapt to the external world when their mothers FAILED to meet their every need. When the moms were imperfect, it had a positive effect on the resiliency of the child. Mothers are not good and mothers are not bad. They are somewhere in between. They are human! Thank you, Winnicott! 

We can’t provide everything for our children no matter how hard we try. Let your kids see your mistakes, shortcomings, your angry feelings, your sad feelings. This will give them permission to experience those things, too, in life. You are not only teaching them how to have manners, how to share toys, and how to brush teeth. You are teaching them how to f*ck up and then deal with it by fixing it or living with it if it’s unfixable. You’re showing them how to argue and then repair a relationship (we've all argued with our partners in front of the kids). You’re showing them that a perfect mom, perfect child, perfect teacher are illusory characters only found in magazines and Hallmark cards. I cannot kiss my daughter’s boo-boo away. I’m not a magician. I can’t solve all of her problems, and honestly, I will have probably contributed to some of them as she gets older. But, I can apologize for opening the refrigerator into her head and hurting her by accident. I can help take care of her after my mistake. I can take her to the doctor for the right care. 

So, this Mother’s Day…let’s celebrate the fact that we are good enough. And that that’s really all we need to be. 

For further reading on Winnicott: 

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/theorists/winnicott.htm