i spent a large portion of my young adult years convinced that the object of life is to be perfect. since i am a minister, some of this was steeped in what i thought was the perfection of jesus. in the area of my spiritual life, i was relieved to learn that the word “pefect” in greek really means “whole.” thank goodness!

but some of my drive for perfection was cultural and was fed by the sleek women’s bodies in style magazines, the pants-suit warriors hammering through the glass ceiling, and finally, the mothers who seemed to float along on lofty platitudes pertaining to breast-feeding, tv-watching, organic-eating, penny-pinching, floor-time playing, and the like. i am strangely grateful that my resolve for perfection died (for the most part) long before i became a mother, myself. it was a painful death, mind you, complete with anxiety attacks and some really good therapy.

but in my experience, we don’t move from perfectionist tendencies to normalcy all at once. there are stages involved, and stage one frequently swings the pendulum in the complete opposite direction. what was once an ugly competition to modal impossible ideals becomes an equally ugly competition to denounce them. in other words, the “i suck contest” begins, and in the context of motherhood, it usually goes something like this:

mother 1: “i haven’t showered in two days.”

mother 2: “oh, please. i haven’t showered in two weeks.”

mother 1: “well, my children watched six hours of pbs today.”

mother 2: “cry me a river. my children watched seven hours of dora today, and my son speaks only in spanglish.”

these conversations are rampant, partly because they are funny and easy. i have participated enthusiastically in these “i suck contexts” because the other common ways in which moms frequently commune (through defending or bragging) are truly abysmal. i am happy to be the very picture of imperfection all day long if the only other alternative is depleting fellow mothers or feeling depleted myself.

but surely there are healthier ways for mothers to be together! there has got to be a way for moms to come clean (pardon the pun) about the daily struggle for balance and sanity without all of this self-deprecating language. this is so difficult when language like this is popping up everywhere and is frequently opening pathways of connection between us. how can we embrace the “i suck contest” for its value and then move beyond it into something deeper and more life-giving?

cognitive behavioral therapists would say that we have to modify our thoughts and language first, and changes in our behavior will follow. so, to that end, i’ll go first.

my name is mary allison. i’m a mother. i am not perfect, nor do i suck.

who’s with me?

[this one is for katie in sunny california. all quotation sources can be found by clicking on the bibligraphy page in the sidebar.]

early in my parenting career i accidentally wandered onto the battlefield where working moms and stay-at-home moms go to embed their insecurities in the condemnation of each other. funny — i just thought i was taking my kid to the playground. i was hoisting my little monkey into the swing when i had my first encounter. before she ever even learned my name, a fellow mother asked me if i stay at home full time (and strangely, whether or not i know how to knit). i was nobody until was grouped into one of two categories: that of the working mothers who don’t care about their kids, and that of the stay-at-home moms whose brains are mushy and full of cobwebs.

here is but one arrow in the quiver of the stay-at-home mother:

“whose life was ‘worth’ more — the mother’s or the child’s?… if a woman ‘chose’ to work, she was doing so at the ‘expense’ of her child” (warner 2005, 117-118).

the working mother might load her cannon with this:

“studies have never shown that total immersion in motherhood makes mothers happy or does their children any good. on the contrary, studies have shown that  mothers who are able to make a life for themselves tend to be happy and to make their children happy. the self-fulfillment they get from a well-rounded life actually makes them more emotionally available for their children — in part because they’re less needy” (warner 2005, 133).

my old marriage and family textbook explains that happy, satisfied mothers are more able to raise happy, satisfied children. it is not whether one stays at home or works outside of the home that relates to the health of her children. rather, a mother’s feelings about how she spends her days are more directly linked to her children’s well-being (kaplan 1998, 134).

the funny thing about this situation is that, if what my textbook says is true (and i believe it is), then these disparaging playground conversations undermine a mother’s happiness and by proxy, the happiness of her children. the mommy wars themselves are the problem, not the vocational choices we make.

so let’s quit this already! the next time someone hears how you spend your days and concludes that you are either heartless or brainless, just tell her to go to her room! if we’re going to ask our kids to play fair, we’re going to have to start heeding our own advice. let’s at least learn each other’s names before we pick teams.