Science Says Give Yourself a Break: It's OK to Be a Good-Enough Mom

Monday, June 3, 2019 - 2:15pm

Go easy on yourself, Mom! A new study outlines what it takes to make your crying baby feel more secure—and it turns out it's less work than you think.

New moms, don’t be so hard on yourselves. Even if you don’t “get it right” 100 percent of the time, your baby will turn out just fine. Don’t believe it? A new study confirms being a good enough parent is, well, enough.

Susan Woodhouse, Ph.D., an expert on infant attachment, found the way we’ve traditionally been looking at parenting might not be telling the full story. Typically, she says, we view parenting in terms of “moment-by-moment matching.” That means when Baby “gives a signal of needing something, the parent will respond appropriately and promptly,” explains the associate professor of counseling psychology at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

But what happens when a parent isn’t able to react every single time their newborn lets out a cry? “If you do it at least half of the time, that seems to be enough for the baby to still be secure,” says Dr. Woodhouse, who co-authored the study with Julie R. Scott of Pennsylvania State University, Allison D. Hepworth, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and Jude Cassidy, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland. And having a secure baby is the goal. Research shows security in infancy can positively affect a child's physical, motor, and cognitive development.