As we head into a new year, full of unexpected joys and challenges, I would like to suggest that we focus our thoughts on what it means to be “good enough parents.”

I don't claim to have all the answers about parenting, or about relationships, but you will find in my posts a strong bent towards what I like to call Good Enough Parenting. I will continue to explore different opinions about what works and what doesn't work in both parenting and relationships, as they are very connected, and will cite studies relating to many different topics, but we are on a journey of discovery and the answers are seldom clear cut.

I have a lot of sympathy for today's parents. The plethora of advice books on how to parent has always been good birth control for any who might read them in advance, but with the Internet added to your source list,0 the sheer amount of consultation available on how to parent is mind-boggling. On top of this, the news of the kind of world your child will live in, although probably not that much worse than what your parents and grandparents feared, is constantly streamed into your living rooms via television and the Internet. Even when I Google "good enough parenting," the 46 million plus hits give us some idea on the controversy surrounding that definition. Everyone has advice on what you will have to do - how hard you will have to work - how much you will have to know - just to be "good enough."

I would like to give you, as parents, the benefit of the doubt. Judith Viorst, in one of my favorite books, Necessary Losses, quotes a letter from a mother to a child psychologist:

"Not one of us willingly would do anything to cripple our children spiritually, morally or emotionally and yet we do just that. I cry often inside for things I have done and said thoughtlessly and I pray not to repeat these transgressions. Maybe they aren't repeated but something else just as bad is substituted, until I am frantic for fear that I have injured my child for life."

Viorst goes on to say that "It is the fear that almost all mothers" - and I would add fathers - "share: that our flaws as a person and parent will do permanent harm to our children and that even our best intentions will not protect them."

I do not believe that even the worst of parents truly mean to bring their children to harm. And the fact that you are reading and engaging in discussions on topics like Body Talk, "I" statements, and how to work with difficult grandparents gives me hope for your family in 2010. Maya Angelou made a statement that I reference often: "I did then what I knew then, and when I knew better, I did better."

My goal in writing here is to help you move beyond what you know into the areas where you can improve, but my hope is that you will also give yourself the benefit of the doubt and congratulate yourself for being a "good enough parent." Happy New Year!