Perfectionism and its Discontents

The women's spirituality group of which I am a part just started reading The Spirituality of Imperfection by Kuntz and Ketcham. I was not around for the decision to work from this book, but it seems tailor-made for my current life situation. To Cosmogrrl's recent posting praising FLYlady's method of getting organized, I replied that for me it was just further temptation to perfectionism -- a tendency that has only worsened in me since becoming a mom.

I remember reading in a pastoral counseling class that mental health is defined largely by having flexible, constantly-updating schema of the world and one's place in it. If you buy that -- which I do -- then parents should be, paradoxically, some of the most sane among us. Every day contains some tweak to the cosmic map: the ol' pinky-as-pacifier trick no longer works; you're no longer carded for beer; someone's actually allowing you to be a parent?!

Maybe it would be more correct to say that we won't stay sane for long as parents without a whole load of flexibility. The Swadfather pointed out to me the other day that my standards for cleanliness have gone up since having Speedy, even though all the books say, "Let housework go." Really, though, the kitchen sink is about the only thing over which I feel I have control. I'm hanging on to it. I try to let it go, but I'm to busy letting go of my whole notion of who I am, what I can do, what defines me. Even running, the one time when I still feel like myself, sure of the boundaries of my own body, requires me to let go of defining myself by my physical strength, my speed, my in-tactness.

Kurtz & Ketcham suggest that perfectionism is modernity's answer to a chaotic world. I would answer (and I'm not prepared to back this up) that a sense of chaos has always been there, as has perfectionism, in such guises as art, religious devotion, and militarism. Even Eve's "kaniti ish et ha-Shem" has been translated as, "I have brought forth a man, just like G-d has done."

It seems that from our very origins, we have been trying to get back to being divine. Perhaps the worst form of idolatry? Certainly, the cruelest to ourselves.