The Tyranny of Perfection
Raise your hand if you fall prey to the feeling that you have nothing to bring to the table because you’re an imperfect homemaker.
Whenever I hear someone voice something like this, I start wondering if other women think my house or life is perfect. I wonder if people think I talk about homemaking because I’ve got it all sorted out. Do other women realize that I have so much maintenance work, remodeling and yard projects, and personal growth to do? I have a shed that is crumbling and needs to be gutted. I haven’t dusted in weeks and my husband was disappointed with dinner. I still appall myself with the way I treat and respond to my husband and the providential twists and turns of life. I battle discontentment, grumbling, gossip, and anxiety every day. My sink is full of dirty dishes and my houseplants are dying.
Homemaking is no more about being perfect than life is about being perfect. We don’t walk around saying we can’t discuss or share our Christianity because we’re still in the fight against sin. We don’t refuse to let our kids eat because they don’t have refined motor skills. Why do we treat our homemaking this way?
“You can’t come to my house, you might see I’m imperfect. I’m a failure because I’m learning, or I’m in this phase of life and you’re in that so you wouldn’t understand. I want their home.” We think these things and say these things. Why?
We’re women, and as women, we can be judgmental and proud. We automatically believe we’re being judged by the women around us. Sometimes we are, that’s true. Women can be harsh with one another. But other women’s sins aren’t an excuse for our sins. It is a struggle. Some women can be very free with their judgment. But don’t assume everyone is judging you because most women don’t notice any of the imperfection and when they do, they don’t care. I may notice a pile of unfolded laundry on your couch, but I don’t care about the pile of laundry. You may notice that the lighting in my living room is epically stupid, but I doubt very much you’d let it stop you from coming over for a cup of coffee and we can both have a good laugh.
Most of us don’t notice, don’t care, and are relieved to know you’re not perfect and neither am I and neither are our homes. Perfection isn’t a requirement for homemaking anymore than it is for the rest of life. Justification and sanctification are not in tension but nestled together. We have homes. We strive to be good homemakers.
The sad/funny part is that we tend to feel like we can’t share our homes because they aren’t perfect but we’ll be judgmental of women who have something close to our view of perfection. We’ll say mean and hurtful things mostly to cover our own sense of failure. We should not allow ourselves to do this! It’s mean, hurtful, bitter, spiteful, and breaks our bonds of fellowship.
I’ve been told—through blog articles, movies, TV shows, BuzzFeed, and more—that it must be nice to have a clean house because we don’t have children. Really? You don’t think that I would sacrifice a clean home for kids? People respond at times as if infertility is freedom: vacation, money, a clean house, quiet. They don’t see past the end of their noses. It hurts my heart. Are you saying that a solid bank account and a clean house are more valuable than your kids? You think I chose this? You think it’s fun? We all have to be so careful not to communicate that if only we didn’t have children/husband/responsibilities we would be perfect. Many people don’t have those things who dearly wish they did. And! It’s a lie. You would be no less imperfect with or without those things. It’s using the stage that you’re in to judge stages you’re only looking in on. We should not allow ourselves to do this! It’s mean, hurtful, bitter, spiteful, and breaks our bonds of fellowship.
A word of warning, seeing one another’s imperfections can be welcoming, but it can also make us comfortable with our sin.
“Well, so and so seem okay with mounds of laundry unfolded, so I can be lazy and sloppy today.”
“So and so’s husband doesn’t care if she doesn’t cook dinner, so why should mine?”
We have to see our finiteness and we have to strive against sin. We have to accept that there will always be more to do and then try to decide wisely if it is time to work or rest. We need to be tender with others and hard on ourselves. We may feel like our lives are a mess as we get on the floor to play cars with our boys or tea with our girls. We may think everyone is judging us when we’re the one judging someone at a different stage of life. Balance is necessary even with our kids. We balance work and play. Love the play movements but teach your children to clean up.
I see these motivational quotes all the time telling moms to stop worrying about the dishes and spend time with their children. Part of this appeals to me. People, big and little, are more important than things and chores. We’ve all heard horror stories about moms who make life a living hell because they’re more concerned with cleaning than with their kids. We’ve all sloughed off our husbands because dishes needed to be done, floors needed to be swept, and the dryer needed to be emptied. We’ve all mistakenly chosen chores over people. But!!!! But that can’t be our excuse not to clean. We can’t go the other direction and allow our homes to fall apart in the name of play and husband-introduced-interruptions. Balance. Communication. Children enjoy cleanliness—despite the abounding evidence to the contrary—as much as anyone. Chaos isn’t good for their souls either. Husbands can help us find the balance if we would just speak up.
Balance.
Does this mean that the next time I pop over and see dirty floors, toys everywhere, and laundry still unfolded, I think you’re a bad homemaker?
Nope.
That’s not for me to judge. If you pop over and see my sink, I trust you’re not judging me either.
We have to find the balance between too high a standard and too low a standard. That’s your job for you, not mine for you. Don’t judge others, test yourself.
The other enslaving, damning, tyrannical part of chasing perfection in a fallen world as a finite being is that you are finite. You need sleep, food, rest, recreation, and downtime. You are a creature who must trust God and go to bed. God in his wisdom made us finite. We can’t go all the time and do all the things and have all the things. We’ll not only kill ourselves, but we’ll make our homes miserable. We won’t have restful homes if we never rest.
Our husbands would probably like to see us on occasion. I mean, what is the point of being a HearthKeeper if we’re never enjoying our hearths, or the fruit of our keeping? How can we expect our families to take a deep breath and relax because they’re home if we’re never content with the day’s work, not because of us, but because of God?
Two suggestions on how to harness an internal calm so necessary for a happy home (hint, hint, it’s not having a perfect house):
1) Realistic To-Do Lists
2) Simplify
It took me years and years and years to realize I was constantly creating To-Do lists that I could never accomplish as a normal human being. They were always unrealistic and always created a frantic, anxious atmosphere in my home. I was stressed out and my husband bore the brunt of it because I was always impatient with him and never had time for him. If you’re always anxious about the To-Do list, consider simplifying. We do not have to do it all and be it all all the time. Cut back, cut out, re-evaluate what is actually important, like calm, rest, good meals, and then rebuild with a simplified plan.
To do this we need to:
First, pay attention and decide what our baseline for food, cleanliness, and social activity is.
Second, be okay with our limits. We won’t get to do everything.
Third, embrace the long-term picture. We don’t expect projects to take hours, but days, weeks, or months. We’re realistic, not perfectionists.
Fourth, say no. No to ourselves and others. We decide on our family’s priorities: church, music, sports, art, etc. We don’t try to do it all. Pick a few and focus. What we don’t do at this phase we may do at another.
Perfection is a tyrant when we’re broken, limited creatures. Only God is perfect and He has justified us and is sanctifying us. Perfection is judgmental of both ourselves and of others. But we can slip up and use the lack of perfection as an excuse to be lazy. Balance is required. Take some time early in the morning with those first few sips of coffee, late at night over a glass of wine, while you’re smudging, while you’re doing dishes, on a date with your husband, and think through and discuss what phase of life you’re in, how to simplify, what can go and what can’t, what to keep but make easier. Our goal is calm, realistic homes, not anxious buildings of attempted perfection.
Let the lies of perfection go and get to work.
