May 20, 2025 by Joanna Dutra
There’s so much pressure to be perfect these days. Especially in parenting. We acknowledge the sentiment of progress vs. perfection, even as we struggle to do the best we can. But sometimes it’s just too much.
May is MAYhem. Like childbirth, I forget the pain until April 30th rolls around. Every. Single. Year.
Soccer, lacrosse, tennis, dance recitals, art shows, communions, graduations… you name it. I’m cooked before I’ve started.
We have to change our expectations or we’re going to drive ourselves to the point of no return. Because no matter what – there is no perfection. The amazing scientist Marie Curie said it best: “Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.”
Last week, my younger daughter’s birthday coincided with a 4:30AM departure for my older daughter’s DC school trip. Running on empty, I exploded a bowl of oatmeal in the microwave. While cleaning up, that newly minted 8-year-old helped to bring in our beloved Hornstra Farms milk delivery. And carried not one, but two, half-gallon glass bottles downstairs.
She was helping me avoid stairs because my supposedly-healed broken foot is still bothering me. She’s strong like a Taurus bull, but unprepared for a refrigerator door that swings open wildly. A full bottle smashed and made such a mess, broken glass and milk with the potential to surely sour and smell as it makes its way into all crevices and carpets. Even my husband, used to cleaning my messes, was going to struggle.
‘Don’t cry over spilled milk’ is a great adage. Because this isn’t a big problem, it’s not even a small problem. It’s a nuisance and inconvenient and we’d trade a thousand of these for the unsolvable ones. Ones I won’t write about now, but we hold in our hearts.
Teaching that to a kid is hard in the moment, especially when you’re going to be late for the bus. But she didn’t need that lesson. This one’s for me, and also for you, if you need it.
Give yourself some grace. We’re trying to be supportive, and we all love our kids, but we cannot do it all. We are not machines. We are not programmable robots. Our flaws are our trademarks. Mistakes can be funny. It’s all going to be ok.
There’s a lot wrong with our world right now but YOU, and I mean YOU, are not one of them.
Love your kids. Tell them you’re proud of them. Find something each week to highlight what you love about them. It may be something they’ve never heard before. All the better.
Children are our most valuable treasure. They’re listening to us, they’re watching us, they see how we handle stress, and they worry. Yesterday, that same strong kid reached over and started rubbing my shoulder out of the blue. She was 7, now she’s 8 – and no matter what she shouldn’t know that my worries are gathered there like a rock. A solid Gibraltar-sized rock. I want her to
be loose and carefree. I want her to enjoy the spring, the blooms, the games, and the playgrounds. I want her to be joyful. I don’t want her to know all the world’s challenges.
On Sunday I walked with my husband in the woods behind his parents’ house. He told me about forts he built with friends and the pond where they’d skated in the winter. And the time he and a pal took turns throwing rocks at a wasp nest which he hit squarely.
He’s always had good aim.
I’m sure you can picture them running for their lives from the crazy swarm. Benadryl was needed, it was definitely needed.
We had a childhood, and I’m so grateful for it.
Allow our kids to find simple pleasures. They are resilient, yes. And they’ve already been through so much. Yes. If we can shelter them from our worries just a little bit more, I think it would be so helpful. I’m making more of an effort not to completely ignore the noise, but to embrace the beauty that is spring and the passage of time.
I’m giving up chasing a ridiculous notion of perfection and finding as much music and hope in the season as I possibly can.
Take a breath, breathe in the pollen. (I’m mainlining Zyrtec at the moment.)
Okay, but seriously:
MAY you find joy.
MAY you find love.
MAY you find hope.
MAY you find color.
MAY you find music.
MAY you find moments.