The Benefits of Being a "Good Enough" Parent

Across the globe, parents are settling into the idea that the current coronavirus outbreak will require many to take over for teachers and child care providers into the foreseeable future. On top of that our Facebook feeds are urging us to work with our children to be sure they are busy being productive and using this time to do extra things like learn a new language, watch free opera at the Met on-line and perform complex science experiments at home. Many parents are picking up these new “homeschooling duties” while also caring for aging parents, trying to secure groceries safely, filing for unemployment or working from home, and managing our own anxiety. I can’t even imagine the complexity and stress of being a healthcare or grocery worker right now.

I encourage every parent to google “the benefits of boredom for children” and I want to make the case for setting our aim to simply be “good enough” parents during this odd and delicate time for our families.

“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”
― D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality

My daughters are ages 17, 14 & 10. At the last set of teacher conferences, a good number of their teachers said, in almost identical language, that my girls are very “self-advocating.” At first I wasn’t sure how to take in this information. It felt a bit like a back-handed compliment. When I shared my bewilderment about the teachers’ comments with a friend, she recommended I read up on the work of pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott who researched thousands of mothers and their children back in the 50’s and came to realize that children actually benefit when their mothers “fail” them in manageable ways (not major failures of course, such as abuse or neglect). He was the first to proclaim the benefits of being a “good enough” parent in the long-term growth and well-being of our children.

When our babies are infants, we do our best to respond to their every need. As soon as they cry, we rush to snuggle, change or feed them – offering immediate comfort. Our response at this age is crucial in teaching our children that they are safe and will be cared for. But, of course, this level of attentiveness cannot be sustained, nor should it be according to Dr. Winnicott’s study. In fact, he said the best thing we can do is slowly become “good enough” parents. In other words; our children actually need us to fail in tolerable ways on a regular basis so they learn to live in an imperfect world.

He states that every time we don’t hear them call us right away, are unable to give them our full attention, or feed them a dinner they don’t particularly enjoy, we are preparing them to accept and function in a world that will quite regularly frustrate and disappoint. Our children learn, through our “failures” that the world doesn’t revolve around them, that life isn’t always fair, that they won’t always get their way. But they also learn that despite life’s inevitable disappointments and conflicts, they will still be okay.

Even if it were somehow possible to be the “perfect” parent (whatever that might look like), the end result would be a fragile child who is unable to cope with even the slightest disappointment. The gift of the “good enough” parent is that perfection is never offered as an option, rather our children learn to accept, expect and rise above the challenging experiences of anger, boredom and sadness. Resilience is the great gift of the “good enough” parent.

Are our children safe, fed, clothed and loved? Are we getting it right most of the time? If yes, then we need to be gentle with ourselves and trust that each time we disappoint and they get through it, Dr. Winnicott’s research tells us they will be a little bit stronger for it. I like Dr. Winnicott. In fact, I’d like to hug him and have him over for dinner.

Send your "Crazy Catholic Questions" Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at: http://crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com

How can I lead my family in prayer at home during this quarantine?

Dear Christ the Redeemer Faith Families,

We hope you are all faring well and staying healthy on this sunny Sunday! We certainly missed gathering together for Mass and Faith Formation this weekend, but we would like to offer you a couple ways in which you can keep the Sabbath holy and pray with your family at home.

First, Fr. Joe and Mari put together this BEAUTIFUL Mass podcast that you can listen to in whole or in part at this link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/931729/3006958 (Next week we might even be live streaming! So stay tuned!)

Another option is what my family likes to call "Home Church." When we have one or more children sick at home I will usually tip-toe out of the house early in the morning to enjoy a blissfully peaceful Mass with no children in tow and will bring back consecrated hosts for my little home bound sickies - but "officially" blessed bread is not a necessity to share this beautiful family prayer when you are all stuck at home.

Below is a link to a little printable communion service we put together to assist in praying our ancient sacred prayer together in your home. We encourage you to let your CHILDREN lead the prayer! It's such a joy to hear them speak the familiar words we hear at Mass each week. You may also find the link on our website at www.ctredeemer.org

So, let us know how this works for you. You are invited to post photos of your family praying together and creative ways you are keeping the sabbath on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ChristTheRedeemer.LakeOrion/

Wishing you health, peace and joy!

Lisa Brown and our Office of Family Ministry Staff: Gabriela, Leah, Ann, Michele, Karen, Lisa & Jason

Here is link to the printable HOME CHURCH file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWtYMvYN59WXmC6JDxQEDVr5fBstSmYk/view?usp=sharing

#180: The Ribbon Lesson

An atrium story…

A few Sunday’s back I had one of the most meaningful and overwhelmingly beautiful days of ministry I think I've ever experienced. I spent the morning in the atrium with 15 children. At the end of our 2-hour, contemplative, screen-free session, one of our 4th grade boys asked incredulously "That was two hours?!? It felt like 5 minutes!" This is not the first time I've heard this...and it is true. The time spent communing with God and one another in this sacred space does really fly by!

What really touched me was what happened right at the end of our session. I gathered the children around our prayer table for closing prayer, we sang "Shepherd me O God" with some petition prayer and silence peppered in. Then I dismissed the children and one-by-one they all went to meet their parents at the door to go home. All but one little girl, about 8-years-old, who hung back and scooched up next to me around the prayer table, tapped me on my knee and said in a whisper "My brother, in my momma's belly. His heart stopped and he died."

I responded, of course, with how sorry I was that this had happened to her family. I asked how her momma was doing and she said "she cries a lot" and I nodded, and said "yes, it is a hard thing go through for sure." A little silence was shared and then I asked her if she remembered our ribbon lesson from last year (called “La Fettuccia” in its original language of Italian) and she nodded in the affirmative. Then I said "So, whether we live just a few weeks in our momma's belly or 100 years, each of us live for just a whiff of time. In the blink of an eye, all of us - very soon – will be swept up in God's loving arms, just like your brother and we will all be together again…and then who knows what goodness God has planned for us!?! I bet your brother already knows this wonderful place, don’t you think?" I could literally see the burden lift off this little one who had truly heard the “good news” as her face broke into a wide grin. Then she nodded, gave me a quick hug and bounced out of the room. It was quite a moment.

This experience reminded me of the little anecdote about paleontologist, mystic and Jesuit priest Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In Teilhard’s view, the unfolding, evolving Universe is both a physical and a spiritual event that emphasizes the great patience of God, not unlike our ribbon lesson in the atrium based on his theology attempts to make somewhat concrete for the children. One time, back in the early 1950’s, Tielhard was being interviewed by a very anxious reporter who asked him with great fear and trepidation “But, what if we destroy ourselves with the Atomic bomb!?!?” And Tielhard calmly responded, having a sense of the vast history and mystery of the universe and the indomitable nature of life, “Well, that certainly would set us back a few million years.”

May we all be filled with such humility in the face of the great mystery of creation of which we are a part and have confidence in the important role each of us play, as co-creators with our loving God, to that day, not long off, when God will be “All in all.”

Send your CCQ to Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com. 

#179: Universal Christ

Any insights from the new weekly Silent Hour and book discussion of Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ?

Indeed! In fact, outside of Eucharist, speaking for myself, I can’t remember a more personally transformative program we have held for the adults of our parish since my tenure began in 2014. The silence has been SUCH a grace and the book discussion downright riveting! Below is an excerpt from Rohr’s book that we discussed at length this past Tuesday. If you find it as consoling as we did, consider yourself very welcome and invited to join in! We will have read up to chapter 9 come Tuesday, Oct. 29. I suspect that we will continue into November. Silent hour begins in the Disciples room at 11AM (arrive any time you like) and the book discussion starts at Noon.

From Rohr’s Universal Christ, emphasis his:
If any thought feels too harsh, shaming of diminishing of yourself or others, it is not likely the voice of God. That is simply your voice. Why do humans so often presume the exact opposite –that shaming voices are always from God, and grace voices are always the imagination? That is a self-defeating path. Yet, as a confessor and a spiritual director, I can confirm that that broken logic is the general norm. If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you and toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God…

#178: Fundamentalism

I have a friend who attends a “non-denominational” Christian church who says that Catholics don’t believe in the literal, infallible and inerrant truth of the Bible. Is this true?

Well, your friend is both right and wrong. It sounds like your pal supports a fundamentalist approach to our scriptures which declares verbal inerrancy, infallibility, and literal truth of the Bible in every detail. In this the words of the Bible are believed to be plain and simple: their meaning is self-evident and does not need to be interpreted. All that is required is that it be read in faith, with prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if we take this to mean that anyone asking for an accurate interpretation will be given one without any research necessary, then the multiplicity of interpretations, even among fundamentalists themselves, should give people a gnawing sense that the Holy Spirit is not doing its job very effectively.

We run into all sorts of problems when we read the Bible literally, that is, without trying to interpret its meaning. Noted Catholic Scripture scholar Fr. Eugene Laverdiere once said “Fundamentalism is not a particular interpretation of the Bible, but rather the lack of any interpretation.”

#177: Exclusion

Why do some priests at funeral and wedding Masses announce that only Catholics in ‘good standing’ can receive Communion? Sounds pretty judgmental and unchristian to me.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were a tad preoccupied with issues of "purity." The scribe’s advice to maintain purity was to avoid anything unclean. The scribes set and maintained boundaries. John Shea says “Jesus boldly crosses this boundary of clean and unclean. This boundary had become a division, and the division had lead to exclusion. Jesus represents God’s loving outreach to those whom society, in the name of holiness, had pushed away and whom Jesus, in the name of holiness, draws in.” Jesus is teaching us that the path of love sometimes requires that we cross boundaries.

#178: Wealth

Why do we talk about money so often in church?

The manager in our parable today knows that his job loss will lead to starvation. If something doesn’t change, he is going to die. So, he sizes up his situation and wastes no time executing his sly plan for survival.

While he still has power to make deals with his master’s money, he calls each of the debtors in for a one-on-one meeting. He has each of them acknowledge how much they owe and then has them altar the numbers. It is the manager’s idea, but the debtors change the amount owed in their own handwriting. Now they are partners in crime. The manager has taught them how to cook the books, but they have gone there willingly. When he’s fired, they will welcome him into their homes because if not, he will ‘out them’ to the master.

And Jesus says “his master commended that dishonest manager for acting shrewdly.” And we all say “Whaa?”