The Best Parenting Advice I Ever Ignored — And Why It Was a Good Thing

When I became a mom, I collected advice the way some people collect stamps.
Everyone had something to say — nurses, friends, strangers in supermarkets, the mom in the playground whose baby magically slept through the night.

And for a long time, I tried to follow all of it.

I tried to be the mom who never got frustrated, who always knew what to do, who didn’t make mistakes, who didn’t raise her voice, who didn’t forget things, and who definitely didn’t cry in the bathroom.

Then one day, I came across a concept from Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar — Harvard professor, researcher of happiness, and someone whose work changed the way I think about motherhood.

He talked about “the good enough parent”.

Not the perfect parent.
Not the flawless parent.
Not the superhuman parent.

But the good enough parent — the one who loves deeply, tries sincerely, and inevitably makes mistakes…
and models to their children how to be human.

At first, I ignored this idea.
I thought, No. My kids deserve better than ‘good enough.’ They deserve my best.
Which was code, of course, for “I must be perfect”.

But here’s the thing:

Trying to be perfect made me anxious, exhausted, and sometimes emotionally unavailable — the very opposite of what children really need.

Over time, and through many messy moments (several of which made it into my book 99 Mistakes I Made as a Mom – And What I Wish I Knew), I realized something:

The best thing I could give my children wasn’t perfection.
It was presence.

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar says that children don’t need a parent who gets everything right.
They need one who is attuned — someone who shows up, connects, listens, repairs, and loves consistently enough.

Good enough.

And you know what?

Good enough is actually great.

It’s flexible.
It’s forgiving.
It allows space for mistakes — theirs and yours.

It teaches your kids:

• That humans are imperfect

• That mistakes are part of learning

•  That emotions are okay

•  That repairing matters more than never rupturing

And it teaches you that you don’t have to hold your breath through motherhood.

You can breathe.
You can rest.
You can be human.

The advice I ignored at the beginning — “Don’t try to be perfect, just be a good-enough mom” — turned out to be the most liberating truth I eventually embraced.

And it’s at the heart of why I wrote this book.

Because behind every mistake I made is a lesson.
And behind every lesson is a softer, wiser version of me whispering:

You don’t have to be perfect.
You just have to be good enough — and you already are.