Can I really sustain “perfect”?

*Spoiler* No.  No, I can not. 

But let me tell you about a time when I thought I could. 

Without the guidance needed to navigate step parenting in the early days, I discovered that I was only ever perfect or imperfect as a step parent.  And I’d love to say that that’s just me putting pressure on myself.  Kinda is.  But it’s so much more than that.

As a bonus parent, you are the extra part of the family.  And you unequivocally know that’s the case when you join.  I have the most supportive, understanding, and communicative husband in the world (yep, claiming it).  But even his reassurance couldn’t touch the sides of removing the ‘knowing’ that I was the extra. 

What being the extra brings is this gross overcompensation period.  I haven’t accidentally used the word “gross” there.  Maybe I should say “this gross gross overcompensation period” because I mean it’s yuck and it’s big.  My overcompensation period didn’t last too long before I realised I couldn’t sustain it.  And even if I am in denial about how long it lasted, adding an “ours” baby to the mix levelled me out quick smart.

Being the extra part of the family brings a period of overcompensation where you have no space for less-than-perfect.  And when you slip into less-than-perfect, you are instantaneously totally imperfect.

So, you might ask, what does being perfect really mean?  What does it look like? 

Well, before a step parent burns out from the Perfection Period, it looks like providing a pleasing presence to your step children at all costs, because the odds are not in your favour from the outset.  You are working double time. 

“Please like me”. 

And “please like me enough that all the untruths you’ve heard about how terrible I am are outweighed”.   

And “let me singlehandedly create a space that feels ok to have me in it as the extra in your family”.

And “I’ll never do anything that can be reported back, so I’ll live on eggshells every time you are here, but I’ll make sure you can’t feel that I’m eggshell-walking and you will have a perfect experience every time you’re in this house”.

I can almost hear you reading this and thinking “how ridiculous, that’s neither sustainable nor necessary and no parent – step or bio – can do that”.  Well, I respectfully ask you to keep your logic out of my Perfection Period.   

In the physical sense, the Perfection Period looks like learning every single thing you can about your step children because you want to connect with them in a way that is meaningful to them.  You’ve invested so that when you are tested by the Perfection Police, you know their favourite colour, and their favourite Pokémon, and their greatest fears, and their best friend’s favourite Pokémon, and all of the school timetables. 

But you mustn’t interact with the best friends because that’s not your role.  And you mustn’t buy the Pokémon figurine, because then you’re buying their love.  And you can prepare them for the school activities, but you mustn’t attend because you’re still in the Perfection Period and the perfect step parent knows their place. 

The clincher comes when you mix up the names of the best friends, or miss the memo that there’s a new favourite Pokémon, or send them in a sports uniform when it should have been a formal uniform day, and you find yourself right down that slippery slope to imperfect.  Done.  Finished.  Snakes and ladders style, but the snake tail always lands back at 1. 

Holy, I’m exhausted just reflecting on the Perfection Period. 

Right the way through the Perfection Period, my husband insisted it didn’t matter which Pokémon the kids loved.  But he didn’t understand.  He had real parent credits.  And real parent credits mean you can do lots of things that don’t please your child, including not knowing the favourite Pokémon, and they just love you anyway.  They have an internal love compass that always points to “good” for the real parent. 

I was emotionally exhausted in the Perfection Period.  I was overthinking and overdoing and overwhelmed. 

Something in me switched.  I wonder if perhaps it was as simple as the passing of time?  I wonder if I was feeling more self-assured because time had passed, and I hadn’t broken them.  I’d burned myself out, but I hadn’t broken my step children.  So maybe it was a letting up I gave myself permission for?

I gradually did what felt natural for me.  I went to some of the school events.  And then some more.  And it never felt easy but felt less of an unknown.  I bought the bloody Pokémon.  Because I’m an adult with my own money and I wanted the kid to have the Pokémon dammit.  I bought other things too, when I wanted to. 

After you burn out from the perfection, there are moments when it still feels like you are sliding into the deep abyss of eternal imperfection. 

Kids are fickle at the best of times.  And kids that feel safe in your presence are the ones that give you the hardest time.  But try telling that to a brain that says “do more, be more, give more of yourself and then they will see you, the real you”. 

But the reality is it doesn’t matter how much you do, give, be if it’s from a position of perfection-seeking. 

It. Is. Not. Sustainable.

I mean, unless you actually are perfect.  And I am not.

Doing, giving, being has to be from your heart.  Not a response to expectation.  Not a response to fear.  (Side note: ugh, the fear of doing-it-right-step-parenting).  Not a pursuit of point proving. 

Authentically you.  Because step parenting is a forever commitment.  And the Perfection Period is not a forever commitment.  It doesn’t deserve a reel in the memories we’re here to create. 

My step children have seen me hurt, broken, exhausted, depleted, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry.  Because they see me.  All of me.  Not the me that is desperate to be more than an extra in their family, but the me that is their family. 

The perfectly imperfect me.