Over the summer sociologists at the University of Washington presented a study which found that working mothers who have unrealistically high expectations for themselves and their abilities to balance their work and home lives are more likely to be depressed than those working moms who expect to have difficulty. The women in the latter group know they can’t be perfect and are much more relaxed in their approach. They know (and accept) that certain things will most likely go un-done.
I suspect this applies to all people, women and men, parents or not, who have extremely high expectations for themselves and strive for perfection. It’s exhausting! It’s also difficult to consistently achieve at that level in every area of your life all the time. And so if that’s your goal then it seems likely to me that you might find yourself frustrated, tense and perhaps even depressed pretty regularly. Give yourself a breather this week and let the unimportant stuff wait. You might be surprised to find how good it feels to “just let it go.”
