The pediatrician and psychotherapist D.W. Winnicott coined the expression a “good enough mother” or perhaps one might say “good enough parenting.” It refers to the manner in which a mother responds to her infant child with age-related sensitivity and care, allowing the infant to successfully transition to an autonomous and well-functioning adult.
We will all pass through the oceanic unity of infancy into the subjective individual world of the adult. How else could we navigate the human world we are given? That necessary movement is characterized by the development of a personal identity that defines our separateness as an adult. We are given a name and our sense of self is progressively filled in by life’s events and experiences, wholesome and difficult.
We lose the inter-connected, spontaneous, and innocent experience of the young child, as we take on the conditioning, patterning, and limitations of an adult. Our infantile world disssapears, but we are able to navigate the day-to-day world of work, intimacy, and social relations. With “good enough” parenting and early circumstances we can do so with kindness, patience, virtue, and human decency. That is an accomplishment that begins with the absence of neglect and the presence of familial circumstances that support healthy development. For that we do not need perfect parenting, but “good enough” parenting.
Much as healthy adult development is the aim of psychology, it is also the first aim of meditation – creating a healthy human life – mental calm, virtuous attitudes and behaviors, a tempering of ego cherishing, and the cultivation of loving kindness towards others. There is a large body of Eastern literature and practices devoted to this important psychological accomplishment.
But is this accomplishment all we can hope to achieve? Consider the work of the developmental psychologist Abraham Maslow. His well known Hierarchy of Needs delineates the stages of human development from basic physiologic needs to self-realization. Self-realization, the culmination of his developmental pyramid, was considered the pinnacle of personal growth and fulfillment.
At the end of his life, some 20 years after the articulation of this model, Maslow declared the model incomplete and began to speak of a state of being he termed “transcendence.” That capacity went beyond the well cultivated personal self, the goal of psychological development. It’s an awakening to the spiritual and mystical experiences of wholeness and oneness. As it turns out, the peak of personal development was not the peak of human possibility. There was more.
It can be said that healthy development is an important preparation for the experience of a larger spiritual life. A “good enough” childhood increases the probability that we will experience life’s larger possibilities, and it does. But paradoxically, the condition of individuality that is fostered by healthy individual development can as well get in the way of spiritual attainment.
Why? Because individualism is by definition a state of separateness and disconnection from others, our highest self, and our planet. The stronger our individual sense of self, and perhaps the healthier, the more it can serve as an obstacle to touching into what lies beyond. What is valuable for one stage of development can paradoxically be an obstacle to the next level of development. The stronger our sense of distinctiveness and separateness the more closed off we may be to what lies beyond.
So, we can say that good enough parenting supports healthy development, but it may not be good enough to go beyond. I recall one of my Eastern teacher’s description of a traditional family upbringing in his culture. There may be dozens of family and close friends raising the child, always a hand to hold, arms to convey security, and the wisdom to navigate times of difficulty. The child was raised by a community bypassing the limitations of a one-or-two person family.
Meditation was a regular family activity, as was the expression of kindness and compassion. Often the community elders would visit and lead songs of awakening called dohas. These pointed to, modeled, and normalized for young adults the state of consciousness beyond individualism. This very different “good enough” upbringing honored both the psychological and transcendent as touchstones of a fully lived life.
I remember meeting a young western woman at dinner, when I was studying in India. We had not met before. After some introductory conversation, she mentioned her recent marriage to a Tibetan man. Curious, I asked her if she could share something she learned from their cross-cultural intimacy. She mentioned that they were living with his brother, and it was odd to her that the brothers never knew whose clothes belonged to whom. I thought back to my own children, and of course that was not the situation I recall. They definitely knew the word mine.
It appears that a “good enough” upbringing is relative to the culture, its values, and aspirations. Certainly, there are elements of care, kindness, responsiveness, and supportive environments that are cross-cultural. But, if one’s familial and cultural values further emphasize selfless compassion, love without an object, and a world that goes beyond the subjective and personal, there will be a larger sense of the human capacity for spiritual development, and a greater chance that it will be attained and lived in adult life.
Could it be that the childhood rearing that’s good enough for a healthy personal self may not be good enough to go beyond, to encourage the fullest of human possibilities? Could it be that by emphasizing only personal development we deprive ourselves of the treasures of human flourishing that lie beyond who we think we are, who we have become? Perhaps we can learn from Maslow that it is never too late to reach beyond. It’s never too late to go beyond the psychological view of adult development to the too often unseen treasures of the spiritual life. It is never too late to expand our view of what it means to be fully human and to adjust our cultural values and parenting skills to align with this larger knowing.