Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood

I'll start this review by saying of Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood, by Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Hollee Schwartz Temple, I agreed to do it six months ago. This review is SIX MONTHS LATE. 

I met one of the book's authors, Hollee Schwartz Temple, at the Blissdom blogging conference last year. She was giving a presentation on copyright and other legal issues that pertain to bloggers and was, to me, the picture of put-together: spiffy dress, great hair, smart as a whip, great sense of humor. When she mentioned she'd co-authored a book and what it's title was, I thought this I have to see.

I myself am a recovering perfectionist. Perfectionism got me nowhere in life but an anxiety and eating disorder. Okay, it also got me validictorian of my high school class and a 3.87 GPA in college -- but that, in turn, didn't really get me anywhere. I didn't get an amazing job because of my GPA. I didn't get people stopping me in the street to admire my credentials. I faxed things for a living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the mind-boggling salary of $18k a year.

If there's one thing I'm actually trying to teach my daughter, it's that perfection usually isn't worth it. Maybe in one little area of life it's worth it -- if you're an artist or a brain surgeon or an engineer, you should attempt to achieve perfection in that area because it's really important. I sure hope the brain surgeon goes home and screws up her lawn once in a while, though, just to even things out, you know?

I liked a lot of things about this book. Every chapter started with a bulleted summary of its thesis statements -- in case you are skimming, I assumed. Which I thought was great and funny. There was a good combination of anecdotes, factual information from the research the authors did and advice. I learned a lot about the authors themselves, making this almost memoirish and more interesting. The main point: When the authors interviewed a gaggle of women, the women self-selected basically into two groups, Never Enough and Good Enough. Guess who was happier?

Having spent most of my life in the Never Enough camp and working really hard to cross the line into Good Enough, I found this book helpful, if for no other reason than to remind me there is no point to perfection -- especially when it comes to motherhood. Motherhood is actually an area in which you could do harm to your child by being too perfect. 

Comments

[Liz]

great topic for a book. thanks for sharing.