The Good Enough Mother, Essay Example

 This essay is about mothering. In it, the writer recalls her experiences with her own mother, and she revisits times when she mothered three children on their way toward adulthood. The title, “The Good Enough Mother,” gives but a hint to the reader of what is to come in this brief author reflection. Upon reading this piece, the reader learns that the author, Anna Quindlen, has determined that being good enough as a mother is synonymous with being the best as a mother.                                                                              

The author’s purpose here is to call attention to the way women mothered in the early years of the Baby Boomer generation and to point out several of the society-issued changes and expectations that typically fall to women of today as they mother in 21^st century America. Quindlen recalls a carefree childhood where her mother did not micromanage her every move and motive. She observes that, though her mother was terrific, she would be considered lacking by current measures and standards.                                                             

The author finds value in what she calls the “carelessness” of her childhood. Quindlen felt secure whenever her mother was around; and, even though her mother did not drive and could not take her from place to place, the mother was devoted (a personality trait that is not adequate, apparently, in our modern parenting lexicon). The author provides a valuable thing for us all to consider by her observation that “keeping up with the Joneses [has turned] into keeping up with the Joneses kids.” She questions why mothering has been turned into a scorecard and why mothers score only when they enroll their kids in as many or more activities as other mothers do.  

Three techniques are used by the author to convey and extend her purpose defending her mother’s approach (and her own approach) to mothering. First, is memory. She notes that one of the negative consequences of the feminist revolution is that women now attempt to balance the arenas of career and home in ways not imagined when she grew up. Second, is discovery. She reasons that motherhood has strayed from its original purpose as a “calling” to a newer, weaker purpose as a “profession” –mothers who have deferred their innate gifts as nurturers to the likes of child psychologists who, ostensibly, know more. Third, is reverie. At the end of the day, mothers are measured by laughs and good times, not by their skill at juggling schedules and stressful expectations.