The stress of not being good enough

Dear God

I have another request for you.

You will say: Who are you to turn to me, when you have been such a lousy, would-be believer all your life?

And you're right. I never really believed in you. But in the darkest hours of being a parent, I come to you. Because you are a father too. You too know the bone-deep fear of not being able to reach our children. And also the despair when we realise on another sleepless night that we really won't be able to help them. You know that, don't you?

I'm not asking you to make up for everything. I know that young people have to go their own way. They will. I'm just asking you to do one thing: save them from their perfectionism. It is the root of all evil.

You ask why?

Striving for perfection is not the attempt to do something well, it is the stress of not being good enough. It is not the desire to surpass ourselves, it is the worry of being worse than others. It's not the desire to pursue an activity that excites us, it's the leaden fear of disappointing the expectations of others. You may not have noticed, God, that we humans today no longer act out of the conviction that something is important, we increasingly act out of the fear of suffering defeat, of being shamed, of failing, of not getting a slice of the ever-shrinking cake.

Dear God, finally force us fathers, damn it, into responsibility.

Therefore, God, give our young people a little lust for life. Heal them from their delusion of constantly comparing themselves with others and from the shock when they realise that there is always someone who is better, more beautiful and more popular than they are. And prevent them from opening Instagram at such times to seek comfort, because they won't find it there.

Parents who strive for perfectionism

And, God, while we're talking, can I ask you for something else? Heal us parents from perfectionism too. Deliver us from the ever-present pressure to organise the perfect birthday, to pack the perfect snack, to find the perfect school, to be the perfect family. Free us from the fear that our children will one day have no jobs, no friends, no future. Take away the worry that other parents are better than us.

Above all, redeem mothers from the ideology of the «good mother», because it always contains the idea of failure and the guilt of not being good enough. And finally, damn it, force us fathers to take responsibility.

I honestly don't know how to do that, but you, God, you know, don't you?

Amen.