Wednesday 18 January 2012

The Perfect Myth

The other day I inadvertently interrupted one of my colleagues speaking with some other work friends. Later, for some reason or another I asked what they had been chatting about. 

"Your perfect family."

I cringed. And I'm sure my brow furrowed. And then I cacked myself.

"My family perfect?" And then I laughed hard again thinking about how imperfect my life is. 

The perfect family? Don't think so. Far from it.


I quickly popped that bubble - because I am not one for perpetuating myths. I am not perfect. My family is not perfect. Life is not perfect.  I quickly jumped to my family's defence and went to town mythbusting.


I rattled off a whole bunch of reasons why our family is not perfect:
- we argue
- our house is a mess
- sometimes we can't pay our bills on time
- we don't really know what we're doing - we just fumble along
- we sometimes struggle to make decisions - big decisions
- I want to move out of Sydney, Matt wants to stay in Sydney
- my kids faces are covered in chocolate
- I struggle juggling family life with work life
- and sometimes we eat crumpets with butter and honey for lunch

There's so much more that makes us imperfect, and delightfully so, but I won't bore you.

But I did keep confirming to her that our family was not perfect, and that there isn't such a thing as a perfect family. With four individuals, there's bound to be conflict, tension, tears, and mess. Everyone has their challenges.


I could go on. And on. And on. But I won't bore you on the reasons why our little family is imperfect. And we're perfectly happy being imperfect.

10 comments:

Jasmine said...

Maybe your workmates see your family as perfect because of the way you talk about them. If you're all essentially happy and love eachother then that is pretty perfect. All the rest is just life, the boring everyday part of life. It's the love that really matters! :)

PS. Yes, I am a big soppy dag! Sorry! hehe

Mrs Smith said...

Why are we all so quick to point out our imperfections? Your family is perfect for you. Sing it out loud and proud.

Kate Moore said...

Amen to that. I'd be happy if my son would stop eating the rice I cook for the dog. He tells me he's hungry. Whatever.

Sarah said...

GOOD on you for throwing it back to them!!

So one day when they have their families they will realise it is OKAY!!!

Where the blkinging did all these myths come from in the first place... ALL THEy do it destroy our emotions!!!!

PinkPatentMaryJanes said...

I must say, crumpets with butter and honey for lunch sounds pretty darned perfect to me...

[Good Mum Hunting] said...

Life is imperfect. That's what it's all about. Those ups and downs, the highs and lows. The tears, the love...

You and Matt are doing a super job with the kids. It won't always be how it is, one day soon, you might have another wee baby on your hands, you might be living out of Sydney, on a big piece of land and the kids will have so much space, who knows what the next year, or five years will bring.

I'm far from perfect. But this year, I am already on the case about changing some of those imperfections. New diet and fitness regime? Tick. New ways to combat my mental health? Tick.

PS: Crumpets with lots of butter is the BESTEST!

xx

Norbyah said...

thanks for sharing this....i think the hardest part about being a parent sometimes is trying to live up to what we perceive a "perfect family" to be. or at least, that's my problem. i just wrote a post yesterday about my "imperfect family", too. in fact, we're so imperfect that last night at dinner the hubby and i had some explaining to do about our behavior the previous evening. put simply, we lost our shit, with each other, during dinner. yep. but, as i said to my children, we're not perfect, we make mistakes, but we all love each other...
xo
n

http://imanorbyah.blogspot.com

shine little light* said...

all that aside, crumpets for lunch sounds completely and utterly awesome to me. *S*

flora bloom said...

hehe, know the feeling :) but it's ok to accept nice compliments, and the feeling that inspired them!

Renea Eliza said...

I used to think I had the perfect family, until I traded the man for a wife and the 3 kidlets grew into unpredictable teens! Now there's a whole lot of swearing (them not me), step parent angst (her not his new wife) and even the Cat developed an anxiety disorder!!
You kids are doin alright. xx