Perfect Parenting is a Myth

Hela Marjan

Instagram – @helamarjan

About Hela

I am a British Afghan, living in the Netherlands, I am married and have two children, I have a Masters in Human Resource Management and I work as a finance and practice manager in my husband’s GP practice. I have a deep passion to learn about the psychology and behaviour of humans, and its impact on raising children. The zeal to grow and enrich myself does not die and this helps me to become a better mother.

Yes, according to me perfect parenting does not exist. The word perfect is described by the Oxford English Dictionary as: “having all the essential characteristics, elements, or qualities; not deficient in any particular; complete, full; total; (of an emotion) unstinted…”¹

Thus, I ask myself can parenting be done absolutely faultlessly, my answer to that is no.

I am a mother of a bright and bold nine-year-old girl and a charming, smart yet cheeky eleven-year-old boy. It is pleasant but it is a journey of continuous learning and improvement. When my children were very young, I would go to bed, and stare at the ceiling, exhausted but wide awake because in my head I had to go over a long to-do list. I would ask myself if I completed all the activities with them. This list that I had created was absolutely impeccable, a work of wonderful admiration. Every day, I aimed for my children to read, play an educational board game, play with friends, concentrate on their homework of ABCs, get fresh air, eat a well-balanced meal, and the list went on and on. According to me, this list had to be checked off daily because that is how I would be the perfect mother. To me, this was the best way of equipping them for a brighter future. But this was impossible. Not every day was the same. Some days they did not play outside but were adamant about playing longer with their toy cars, the red sports car was winning from the blue one and the race had to go on. They were so absorbed in their little play that it would be disheartening to stop them in such exciting moments of joy and so I would allow them to continue playing. But that meant that my list was not done that day, and that was dissatisfying because I thought I was not being the perfect mother, I was not bringing them up to be competent individuals who are good at everything.

I soon realised that we could not complete everything on the list every day. I became aware that parenting cannot be pre-orchestrated, it is not a robotic task. I reflected, and learnt and adjusted my parenting style.

I have a Masters in Human Resource Management and as a mother, I am managing little humans outside the organisational setting.

There are nights when they go to bed exactly at eight pm but there are nights when they want to play their musical instruments longer. For instance, my son stayed up slightly longer one evening because he had a moment of inspiration to invent his musical notes, he wrote and erased and wrote again and after many minutes it was complete. He played his self-created song on the guitar with lots of passion and pride. This was a eureka moment for him and had I still been rigid and adamant on following my to-do list, I would have prevented this exciting moment from happening. It was a jaw-dropping moment. I felt proud and grateful. This is the art of parenting. Creating a good balance is what my husband and I aim for, not perfection. Giving them a taste of everything; when they go on long walks in the forest, a gush of refreshing sensations hits their mind and body; but witnessing their cheeks flush after winning a football match on the Play Station is also pleasing. They can play video games, but also read, maybe a page less one day or maybe none at all some days, but that is okay. We are raising independent and confident individuals and we are doing well. We give them an abundance of love, in fact, sacks full of love and we do not have to be perfect because that is unrealistic and wrong. Just like we tweaked the guitar strings to tune it and play beautiful music, I had to tweak my parenting style to become the best mother for my children. It is the world’s most ironic task: an absolute back-breaker but exceptionally gratifying at the same time.

Perfect Parenting is a Myth