When "Good Enough" Parenting Isn't Enough: Chapter 7 & 8

There is a tendency for new parents to want to do everything right--how to feed, diaper, attach, and secure. I've heard so many not-yet-parents comment how they will never do that when they are parents. Then they become parents. 

A few weeks I was pulled into a conversation between our pastor and a young "soon-to-be-parents" couple who had asked our pastor what it took to be good parents. I know the pastor's journey in parenting is not too dissimilar to our journey so he paused, smiled, and looked at me, asking what I thought it took to be good parents. I recalled my HBSE class last semester and the phrase coined by Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychoanalysis, "good enough mothering." It is the idea that children actually benefit from imperfect parenting, and in all actuality, no parent is perfect. The phrase seems to alleviate any anxiety for expectant parents who are nervous about getting something wrong with the newly born being. The phrase seems to set the bar pretty low.

Over and over as I read these two chapters, this phrase came to mind. The stories of trauma, neglect, dissociative attachment and sexual abuse are sadly triggering. van der Kolk's chapters on childhood trauma and long-term after-effects of this childhood trauma, specifically sexual abuse, I wonder if "good enough" parenting is actually enough to secure that the child will not have life-long trauma far into adulthood. Maybe "good enough" parenting is not good enough. The stories van der Kolk shared were, frankly, devastatingly sad. 

Marilyn's story reminded me, again, how much the hippocampus and the memory keeper of the brain can shut down in trauma. I once asked as a long-time mental health counselor which modality she prefers to use with her clients. Her response intrigued me. She commented that most often she simply allows clients to tell their stories and as they do, she listens for signs of trauma, as she believes that most mental health disorders, emotional dysregulation, or distress stem from trauma. She said sometimes people openly reveal their traumatic pasts, but most often they do not readily share because they are likely not even aware that the name of what they are experiencing is called trauma. Even van der Kolk assumed that Marilyn knew she had been sexually abused as a child. How often do people we encounter in our social work practice have no recollection of any past trauma? Marilyn knew something was not "right" in her relationships with men, otherwise, she would not have sought help. He writes, "erasing awareness and cultivating denial are often essential to survival, but the price is that you lose track of who you are, of what you are feeling, and of what and whom you can trust" (p. 136). How, then, do we gently walk with clients without causing more harm and further trauma? How do we become more than "good enough" social workers?


Comments

  1. BrendanMarch 2, 2022 at 6:47 PM

    Thanks for your thoughts Liz. I think of the question of how social workers can consider their own sufficiency vs. insufficiency when it comes to the profession. Just as we try and develop good practices for approaching clients, parenting, or our work, the ultimate question boils down to what forms of perfection or excellence are available this side of glory.

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  2. Tina MarieMarch 3, 2022 at 1:32 PM

    Hi Liz, Your post is thought-provoking. Sometimes it is very difficult to bring up those difficult questions, but we know that if we don't, they will not come to the awareness that they need and the awareness that we need as therapists to assist them with their struggles. I had a supervisor tell me once that we cannot be too hard on ourselves because we have to undo all of our parents' 'stuff' before we can undo our own 'stuff' and only then, can we move forward and grow. This is what I am reminded of when it comes to an individual struggling due to abuse and neglect.

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