Is a Perfectionism Part Derailing Your Parenting?

Like most of you reading this, I’ve undergone extensive self-healing, coaching, and professional therapy. I’ve explored a dozen modalities and found a few that I quite liked and that made a significant difference. And after just shy of 20 years of progress, the one thing that still catches me off guard and seeps into my goals and life is Perfectionism. 

I grew up as the oldest child and was expected to be the example for my siblings. I was often punished for things my brothers did because I was the oldest and didn’t stop them, or I was expected not to have my own feelings or experiences because of how it might affect them. I was trained to take ownership of other people’s feelings and even behaviors as mine to control. Some would say I learned to “be responsible,” and I would have agreed with them for a time. But as I continue to look at it, I see that I didn’t get a chance to develop who I was. I didn’t have my own identity; I had to be what was expected of me. My entire sense of safety lay outside of myself, in the moods and whims of those in charge. My feelings didn’t matter, my needs were invisible, and I was a master of go-along-to-get-along. 

This made me a desirable student to teachers who appreciate the convenient ones, a useful team member to coaches who needed someone they could put into any position when they had a gap, and a valued worker in an executive office despite being only 15 when I started, because I’m a chameleon. I shift into what you need me to be. I can play any position, take on any role, learn any skillset. This certainly isn’t all bad. But it did come at a cost. And the cost was my authenticity.

Fast forward a decade or so, and I was still relying heavily on this agreeability factor in life. I believed I could make people approve of me, and therefore make people safe for me, if I became what they needed me to be perfectly enough.

But then I had a baby with needs others didn’t understand, challenges others didn’t believe, and a level of postpartum depression that floored me. Becoming a mother was the one thing I always knew I wanted, and I found it unbearable in so many ways. I defined myself by my motherhood and my motherhood by how happy my son was, how well he slept, and how joyful I was to be taking care of him. As I fell short of my self- (and society-) imposed standards, I felt like a failure. My son crying for 16 hours a day proved I was a failure, his being unable to sleep longer than 20-ish minutes meant I was doing it wrong, and his receiving the “failure to thrive” diagnosis signed my stamp of disapproval. When his doctor told me I was just selfish for nursing and it was my fault, I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. I was awful at the only thing I ever truly needed to be perfect at. It was a miserable time. These emotional reasonings felt nothing but bitter and true. It never occurred to me to question my line of thinking; it was all I knew.

In 2015, with two under two, I had a series of experiences that triggered deeply held wounds and brought the concept of codependency to my attention. It was the first time I had heard the word “enmeshment”. It was the only time anyone or anything had challenged the truths I’d been raised with. The idea is simple, really: You are responsible for yourself only - your actions, your choices, your thoughts, your strategies, your needs, and your feelings. Draw a circle around you and stay inside it. Everyone else’s thoughts, feelings, actions, beliefs, behaviors, and choices are not yours to control. And the desperate, panicky desire to control them is the very enmeshment and codependence you were trained to embody as a kid. In your family system, that strategy was necessary, but as a healthy, thriving adult, that strategy has to be laid to rest. I spent two solid years working to unwind my enmeshments and developed a pretty solid radar for when I was dipping into enmeshment with family, friends, or my husband.

But I failed to realize one glaring example of enmeshment: Perfectionism. Perfectionism is the idea that I need to do everything perfectly. But why? Because then people will be happy with me, I can control their moods, their thoughts, and their feelings about me. When I’m perfect, I can control my children’s childhood and make sure it’s as great as I can make it. When I’m doing everything right, I can “prove” my worth. And if I’m worthy and you’re happy with me, then I feel safe.

Ugh.

I realized my safety had depended on my enmeshment and my perfection, and carving out my authentic self relies on shedding the perfect and allowing the messy to shine through. It’s a brutal, ongoing process.

It’s accepting my limitations, it’s tolerating the areas I’m not great in, it’s accepting that my children are their own people and I’m not going to control how they are, but I can control how I am and what example I set for them. It means if I want them to be authentic, I have to make space for them to “embarrass” me because the child who stuffs their feelings down in public is more convenient but less real. As hard as it is to experience in the midst of my own healing, I actually would rather my son carry a protest sign to co-op to express his true feelings than shut down and attend quietly “because I said so,” and he’s afraid of what it means to think differently than me.

Sometimes parents are so concerned with their enmeshment with their families of origin and society at large that they press that burden onto their children, trying to force them, like lumps of clay, into a socially suitable mold. We use broad language like “disrespectful” and “rude” to mean, “Someone will see you acting this way and think I’m imperfect and that’s scary and unbearable for me, so just put on that perfect image, damn it.” 

Yes, it’s our job to socialize our kids, but it’s also our job to see our kids, to meet them and get to know who they are and not just who we are trying to program them to look like. We can teach empathy and help our kids consider different perspectives and needs, absolutely. But if we want that to sink in, we also need to consider their different perspectives and needs, so they have no defensiveness blocking their learning. When they experience what it is to be authentic and have space made for them, it’s natural for them to accept others’ authentic expressions and make space for that too.

So much parenting advice online boils down to training kids to be convenient. And too little is about training yourself to tolerate the discomfort of living with another whole human, whom you didn’t get to technically choose, and learning to work together despite raging differences (or similarities) that inevitably clash. The real parenting work is about making space for all the parts of you and all the parts of your kids. The little tweaks and strategies are figure-out-able, but the core of being allowed to exist as yourself in all your messy glory is irreplaceable.

Other parents are so buried in enmeshment with their children that every social bump “breaks their heart” and causes great distress. It’s the pendulum swing of many cycle-breakers. You aren’t abusing your kids the way you were abused, so now you want to control the rest of the world and not let anyone so much as hurt their feelings ever! And of course, we all want to protect our kids, but part of that is actually letting them have their own normal array of experiences, including less pleasant ones. They need us to be in our circle and trust them to be in theirs. They need to feel from us, “I believe you that this is hard, and I believe IN you that you’ll make it through.” You can, and should, sit beside them. You should not take over or try to make (control) them feel differently than they do. They can feel sad, mad, disappointed, hurt, angry, frustrated, and joyful, without your doing anything “about” it. 

Despite this being an ongoing learning process for me, I’ve somehow been blessed with some very strong-minded, strong-willed, strong-hearted children. I’m so grateful. They’re known to call me out in gentle and firm ways.

From my 9-year-old: 

R - “Is it a problem if I feel that way?” 

Me - “No, you’re right, it’s not.” 

To my 5-year-old: 

K- “You shouldn’t talk like that to me!” 

Me - “Hmm, you didn’t like my tone there. That’s fair. I’ll take a breath to help me calm down.”

To my 11-year-old:

X - “I think you’re thinking ____, but I don’t think you understand my perspective.”Me - “Ok, can you explain your perspective so I can understand that too?”

When my oldest was young, I did want people to see me as a “good” mom and my son as a “good” kid. Of course, he came in like a wrecking ball that didn’t give a rip about my social plans. And thank god he did, because it forced me to confront these things in a way an easy-going, agreeable child wouldn’t have. He has been uniquely himself since birth, and it’s been an honor to know him, and I’m so grateful I stopped caring about outside opinions and focused on what he needed instead. And I’m still grateful for the kind souls who saw my fear or shame and had kind words for me during a meltdown or three of his. Because while I don’t need it to feel ok now, it’s nice to have social support and to feel valued despite an emotional display others might judge.

Nowadays, my lingering perfectionism wants to control their experiences, make sure they only have positive lives, face no hardships or overwhelm, and I know that’s not possible. Even just medically, that hasn’t been possible. So, I have to grieve that futility over and over. And then I have to figure out what is within my circle that gives me appropriate power and influence. And when it comes to my parenting, that means I treat my children with respect and dignity and let them see me learn how to treat myself with respect and dignity too. I project confidence to them and I let them share their thoughts and opinions, even the “I hate this!” ones. I trust that even the biggest feelings shrink in time, and they trust that too. They feel freely, and when things are hard or “suck”, they know I’m a safe place to process that and move through it.

When I feel the desperate sense of “It shouldn’t be this way,” I have to search for hidden enmeshment and perfectionism and help those inner parts feel seen and understood so they can step back and let me retake the wheel of my own life from a place of confidence and authenticity. Perfectionism wants to help, but it’s ultimately not helpful to my greater goals anymore. I have to make sure that part understands that I’m not a child anymore, and this is a different family system. How we define safety actually includes imperfection, and despite little pangs of anxiety, we are safe to be real.

I’m not a perfect mother. I don’t need to be. I don’t have perfect kids. I don’t need to. Our relationship is filled with honesty and authenticity and repair. We like being around each other and continue to get to know ourselves and each other as time goes on. I am still in the intentional stage of stepping out of perfectionism and making peace with my flaws. I’m working on accepting that the world can be hard and unfair without it being my fault or mine to take ownership over. My therapist says that one day the intentional effort will become integrated, and I won’t have to think about it anymore. I’m letting her hold that belief for me and embracing “we’ll see,” because I don’t have to do “healing” perfectly either. The work is worth it right now, and that’s empowering, whatever the future may hold. 

p.s. If you are doing parts work - check out the new podcast Reparenting Realm on Spotify and everywhere you can find podcasts.

p.p.s. I started a Substack if you prefer that format! https://sureparenting.substack.com/