When Will I Be Good Enough?

January 3, 2018 Off By Deby Jizi

“Socialization does not teach us:

To love ourselves for our goodness

To appreciate ourselves for who we are

To trust ourselves

To have confidence in our abilities

To look at our heart for guidance”

~Cheri Huber There is Nothing Wrong With You

The question in the title is a loaded one. It holds our goodness in the balance. One answer is that we will never be good enough. Why? Because we won’t stop putting conditions on ourselves and what it means to be good.

The second answer is that the question is in the future tense, as if goodness is something that we might get if we strive for it. For sure, no fairy godmother is going to waive a magic wand and “make us good,” for many of us have been taught that goodness is something we work very hard for and something we may never attain.

The problem is the question itself.

“What makes me think I am not good?” is a better question. It is a good place to start because if I just told you that your goodness is not in question, then your mind, like a supercomputer, will go search and seize a lifetime of evidence you have amassed that proves me wrong.

Christmas was last week, and as I was listening to the many versions of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” the lyrics stopped me in my tracks, “He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!” I remembered that song during my childhood, and its playful tune, encouraging all the children of the world to be good in order to get presents from dear, old Santa.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, I saw posts on social media about the now popular Elf on the Shelf, where the elf is moved around as it watches the behaviors of the children in the house between those days, and who will report back to Santa their findings. Naughty or nice are words that make me cringe now because I remember them from my childhood. Oftentimes, I was deemed naughty or bad for doing things that children normally do.

Parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbors, even random adults, often had opinions about my behavior. Years later, studying child development in graduate school, I realized that a majority of adults just don’t know what to reasonably expect from children. They expect what their parents’ expected, and society follows suit, while children are bewildered, or worse traumatized, by the reactions they receive from adults for their behaviors.

A few days ago, my daughter, Bliss, who is 17, and I made a quick stop at a Whole Foods to pick up a few items. She went by the restroom before we got started, and when she came back, she was upset by a scene she had witnessed.

A small boy, probably 3 years old, and his mother came into the bathroom. The mother sent the child into a stall on his own. Bliss said that she could hear the automatic toilet flush before the child came back out, but it may have flushed before he finished, such is the nature of this relatively new invention. When he came out, his mother snapped at him to flush the toilet. He told her it already did, but, annoyed, she made him go back in. He was adamant that he had already flushed the toilet. Finally, the mother went to the stall and saw urine on the toilet seat and scolded the child for making a mess. Bliss had seen the toilet when she first walked by, looking for a cleaner stall, and it was dirty before the child used it. She was washing her hands and ready to walk out when the mother leaned toward her and declared, “The struggle is real!”

Bliss was distressed that such a small child was being treated so harshly by his own mother. I can wager that the mother had been treated in the same, or at least similar, way when she was young. My first child was born when I was 22, and I know I had unrealistic expectations of him and his two younger brothers. The problem is that we expect too much from children. They don’t see the world the way we do. They don’t have the experience we have. Most of all, when they are trying to relay to us what they have done or not done, we don’t believe them.

It can begin very young. I’ve had parents declare to me in line at Wal-Mart, when I remark upon the cuteness of the infant they are holding, “He’s already bad. Spoiled rotten!” They are dead serious!

Not everyone gets it this hard as children, but many do. It may not be bathroom or table habits that start us off; it could be how we behave at a relative’s house or at school. It doesn’t take long for us to feel that we just don’t measure up.

It just isn’t common practice, yet, for parents, teachers, and adults to nurture the innate goodness in children, to appreciate them for who they are, to teach children to trust themselves, to have confidence in their abilities, and to look to their hearts for guidance (in developmentally appropriate ways, of course).

So we grow up taking on the roles our parents, teachers, and other adults had. We scold, berate, become frustrated, put ourselves down, and the cycle continues. It is important to know where this all began, so we can begin to make changes to how we motivate ourselves to do the things we want to do in life. The purpose is awareness, not placing blame.

In fact, blame doesn’t do any good. How could these adults have done any better? They did what they knew. If we blame them, we are not doing anything more than finding fault. How does that change how we are going to act now? Remember, WE are the ones on our own backs.

The answer to the question in the title is, “Now.”

Not until we see our own innocence, our own innate goodness, will be feel that we are good enough.

I’ve used this quote before, and I might use it again because it is so important to remember,

“The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself.”― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We’ve got to start being kind to ourselves, and when we fall short of our expectations when it comes to goodness, we have to just start again, without berating ourselves.

Just consider this. Most people want to be good. That is why they get so upset when they think they aren’t. Who but an innately good person wants to embody goodness?

Start by seeing your own goodness. Pay attention to the ways in which you embody goodness everyday and grow from there.

But remember, you are good enough right now.

Peace and Joy,