We have all seen her. She floats through the parenting aisle at the supermarket, hair unruffled, toddler silently eating organic kale chips. Her Instagram feed is a symphony of beige wooden toys, homemade sourdough, and sun-drenched tantrum-free mornings. She is the Perfect Mother .
The most fascinating twist in this review is the work of pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. In the 1950s, he coined the term the "good enough" mother . He argued that a perfect mother is actually a bad mother. Why? Because if a mother is perfectly attuned 100% of the time, the infant never learns frustration, resilience, or the ability to wait. The baby never discovers that a fist can be a toy. perfect mothers
Winnicott suggested that failing —occasionally being late, misreading a cry, dropping a spoon—is the secret ingredient to healthy development. We have all seen her
To review the topic of "Perfect Mothers" is to read a ghost story where the ghost is the self we can never become. She is the Perfect Mother