Perfect.
Photo Courtesy | Holly Ruskin
BY HOLLY RUSKIN
I have a nightly ritual that I perform after my daughter is finally asleep in bed. It goes something like this: go downstairs, make a cup of tea, sit down in the armchair, think about all the ways I wasn’t a perfect mother today.
Perfectionism has been buried deep inside me like a splinter for as long as I can remember. It manifested as OCD when I was a young teen, resulting in very specific words/phrases having to be written in my diary every night to avoid ‘bad’ things happening at school the next day. I don’t remember what these ‘bad’ things were, but I have a feeling they were linked to my social anxiety and - as an introvert - a strong desire to fit in without quite knowing how to do that.
When I became an older teen, aware of the power my body *could* wield and all the ways the world told me I *should* look (in the 90s, this was Thin with a capital T), my perfectionism morphed into an eating disorder that continued for a long time. The shadow of it is still with me now, though its darkness is much easier to recognise and mostly recedes after some mindfulness work and gentle yoga to reconnect me kindly with my body.
After the birth of my daughter though, perfectionism was allowed free rein and it ran me ragged. A traumatic c-section delivery, sleep deprivation and the total shock of becoming a mother left me completely defenceless. I became obsessed with breastfeeding in the absolute BEST and RIGHT way. Then I moved onto getting the perfect bedtime/bath-time routine to ensure at least some meagre hours of sleep. The first Christmas after my daughter arrived, I drove my incredibly patient and understanding husband to near distraction by insisting we stick rigidly to ‘two hour wake windows’ (regardless of whether our baby seemed tired or not), resulting in a miserable Christmas Day where we only managed to get out of the house to walk around the block.
Now motherhood is a little easier, the phases are changing and having an almost three year old does leave me with more time to be with myself. Rest, meditation, cooking nourishing food, talking to friends, running - these are all things I know help me to tame the beast of perfectionism. But here’s the thing. The awful double bind of motherhood. All the ways we can look after ourselves and nurture our mental health require nothing more or less than, time. Time without the care of another on our minds, in our arms and hearts. But if we are without a village, which so many of us are these days, or we are trying desperately to do this very hard - almost impossible - job perfectly, then carving out precious minutes alone is at best a logistical nightmare and at worst yet another stick to beat ourselves with.
“Oh, so you want time alone do you? Because you can’t do this job well enough without it? You don’t love her just the right amount to be able to spend all day with her without feeling slightly insane with the need for space?” Just a few examples of the ways my inner critic talks to me about self care and how ‘selfish’ it makes me. How imperfect a mother.
Perfectionism even taints my relationship with other mothers, which is devastating given how important and supportive friendships between us can be when suffering from mental health issues. Postnatal depression is especially rife when a mother is alone and without a support network. We NEED each other, and I only survived the early days with my daughter because I had three incredible women by my side. But, despite all the goodness they bring my life, other mothers are also another opportunity for perfectionism to claim victory over me. I come away from coffees, walks in the park and playdates both rejuvenated and consumed with obsessions around how they played with/talked to/nurtured their child so much better than me. More patient. More loving. More, perfect.
I don’t really know what the ending of this story is. I have a long road of life and motherhood ahead of me. There are so many ways that being a mother triggers my perfectionism, because raising another human being is about as messy and imperfect as life can get. It changes daily, hourly even. Sleep can’t be relied upon, and so neither can rational thought. We are bombarded by cultural messaging that conspires to keep us quiet, compliant and anchored to the need to appear totally enriched by motherhood. The Perfect Mother does exist, because I’ve seen her in TV shows, books and magazines. And especially now, on Instagram. A popular psychologist, author and mum recently posted about having found time for a swim after dropping her kids at school and I saw one comment underneath from a follower (and fellow mum) who had simply written how do you find the time?! :(. The reply was something along the lines of always being ready with a bag of workout gear, settling for short 10 minute bursts of exercise if necessary and some other generally bland things. All I saw was layers of privilege - a live-in nanny, good income, co-parenting support, family close-by - that were hidden or not being unpacked truthfully enough for all the mothers who follow her. Who, like me, saw that post and immediately kicked their perfectionism into high gear.
Perhaps there is no happy ending to perfectionism, but instead, it is the start of a story we keep telling each other. It’s the catalyst for truth and a dismantling of the perfect mother myth one shared experience at a time. Honestly presenting and talking about our experiences of motherhood, in ways that rub the neat edges off a cultural pedestal that has done so much damage to those of us having and raising children.
Let perfectionism be the lesson we don’t teach our children. The thing we keep back and don’t pass on. And let’s keep talking imperfectly about motherhood. Unpicking the stitches and learning to be happy with our perfectly imperfect selves, so that the next generation can in turn live free from the need to be anything but themselves.
HOLLY RUSKIN is a mama and lover of women’s words. A freelance writer and Film lecturer, her work includes editing books and screenplays, writing essays and poetry. Holly co-founded blood moon POETRY, a small press that publishes poetry written by women @bloodmoonpoetrypress. Her words can be found in various publications; a collection of her poems on motherhood have been featured in the Amazon bestseller Not The Only One. She writes for Motherscope and Sunday Mornings at the River. Connect with her on Instagram @hollyruskin_.