“Is this enough?” Who hasn’t asked that question? Perhaps triggered by a house that seems just a bit too quiet, by not seeing any friends for a couple of days, by a child saying they’re bored, or just the feeling that maybe you could all do with a little more adventure.
There’s nothing wrong with this question if you feel it arise with a sense of curiosity and possibility. You’ll know when this is the case because it feels light and expansive, an open invitation to think about what else you might bring into your days. A hike, time for connection, friends, more slow time… what might feel good right now? Unfortunately, the question rarely shows up so gently. It usually arrives with some panic in the body or a heavy sense of hopelessness. “What if this isn’t enough?”, it asks. Rather than an invitation to get inspired and expansive, your focus narrows and you get hypercritical. You no longer see anything clearly. You just see lack. You compare what you and your children are doing to what you once imagined you would be doing, and to other families who look so different from yours. While nothing much seems to be going on in your house, you know that they are busy with crafts, in museums, out exploring in nature or just wiling the days away in big, happy unschooling community groups. Or, you think of all the things that children get done in a day at school. When it comes as a trigger, the question encourages you to cast these worries into the future and catastrophise a little. No, you conclude, this is definitely not enough. They don’t do enough. I’m not doing enough.
Other people may also trigger this sense of not-enoughness with their questions about what you do all day and how your child learns. I know from experience that it’s almost impossible to give a truthful response that also feels adequate to the other person, whose sense of what is enough is very much based on school. How to convey the enoughness of it all, when so much of it is intangible? It’s hard to resist filling the space with an endless list of activities—they bake, you go for walks, they see friends, they write stories, they watch history documentaries, they make maps and create things in Minecraft. Is that enough? Yikes, who knows?
We live in a society where the fear of not doing enough and not being enough is rampant. A survey from 2019 of 2000 millennials found that 8 in 10 felt that they are not good enough. A study from 2018 found that 60% of young people felt unable to cope due to pressure to succeed. This same study found high levels of stress about body image and fear of making mistakes. The external pressure to conform to some vague ideal is huge, as is the belief that we must always be productive and striving to be successful. So much in our wider culture holds us in these perfection-seeking patterns. How we do at school, how popular we are, whether we get a ‘good’ job, the car we drive, the house we can afford, the holidays we go on, how we look, how we dress, whether we’re good at sports. There are so many deeply ingrained indicators of success. When we have children, it’s inevitable that parenting is added to the list of things we should be getting right. (When my eldest son was a toddler, I was much comforted by the work of British psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott’s definition of the “good enough mother”. Not perfect, but good enough).
The fear of failing and being seen as not-enough taps into our fears of rejection and of not belonging, which are deeply worrisome places for our mammal brains. It keep us in fight or flight, desperately trying to solve the problem to soothe the discomfort. The resulting hypercritical judging of ourselves may inspire us take action and work harder to get to our goals, but do we really want this to be the fuel for our actions? In fight or flight, we are not able to be our full, creative, compassionate selves. And are those goals necessarily our goals? Not only is it hard work and not much fun on a personal level, but for us all to be stuck worrying about how we’re faring compared to everyone else is hardly a good basis for a caring society.
When we step back from mainstream school, we have a welcome opportunity to reframe all of this for ourselves and our children. Without the constant comparing and judging that is inevitable at school, we can create an environment at home where there isn’t a sense of always needing to be better or to reach some external goal. In the absence of tests and grades, we can focus on connection and the pursuit of interests and learning, not for the reward but for the joy of the journey. We can attempt to understand and support enoughness as an internal sense of fulfilment rather than the satisfaction of gaining external approval and of living up to how we think other people think we should be.
At the same time, it is also inevitable that unless we ourselves have escaped the culture of not-enoughness before having children—and I’m not sure that many of us do—it will be gnawing at us until we figure out a way to shake these internalised beliefs. In some ways we may be freer, but when we step off the beaten track, we also have no one to reassure us we’re doing it right, and no one to say that it is enough. What’s the measuring stick? Is it happiness? Is it connection? Is it learning? How can you measure any of these? Is a morning of Minecraft okay? Is getting up late okay? Is it okay that they sometimes express boredom? That siblings argue? That no one wants to go outside today? It’s hard when you know that many people looking in would tell you that this is not enough. If these are your internalised voices, then you’re likely to spend a lot of time worrying.
The problem really comes when, rather than questioning these beliefs, we turn to our children to soothe our worries, needing them to do more so that we feel more adequate. A good friend of mine, whose 11-year-old son has been out of school for over a year, described a recent wobble she had. Her rising sense of panic at the feeling that her son wasn’t doing enough with his days and that she was somehow failing him, led her to try to convince him to take part in various groups and activities. In the middle of a particularly strained conversation, her son became tearful and asked my friend why she felt that all the things he was doing weren’t enough. His reaction helped her reflect on how easily we project our fears onto our children, and on all the things that actually were happening. Perhaps most importantly, she realised that after many years of anxiety, her son was the happiest he had been for a long time. He was confident in the things that he chose to do and he was healing from his own years of feeling like not enough in the classroom.
So when we ask, “Is this enough?”, What are we actually asking? Are we asking if other people would approve? Many wouldn’t. Are we asking if our children are doing enough to go on to lead successful lives as adults? Yes, perhaps. But maybe instead of asking a question that’s impossible to answer, we should turn the lens inwards, and ask instead, “Do they feel fulfilled right now?” By asking this question we’re encouraging them to get used to doing the same. If they learn to question their own fulfilment rather than their “enoughness”, they’re far more likely to find fulfilment in life.
So, next time the question, “Is this enough?” arises, try not to be seduced by it. Rather than beating yourself up with visions of how it should all be instead, see if you can gently welcome it as an opportunity to take a closer look at what it’s made of. And consider that maybe it is an invitation to not engage in that narrative at all, and instead to embrace yours and your child’s innate enoughness.
How to practise radical enoughness when the question comes up
- Recognise the feeling and name it. This puts a little space between you and the feeling, and helps you to see it as an old belief rather than a concrete reality. Pay attention to the feelings in your body so you can start to spot it early and before your thoughts have started to spiral off into difficult places. Acknowledging that many people often feel this way can help to soothe the discomfort.
- Perception is a powerful thing. Once you put the lens of not-enoughness on, you are likely to start seeing everything through that lens and nothing will feel good enough. Try not to do anything from this space. Go for whatever helps you shift your perspective, whether that’s a quick walk around the block, a few deep breaths in the garden or a podcast and a cup of tea. Settle your nervous system, then see if you can shift your perspective to appreciate other things that are also present.
- Remind yourself that unschooling inevitably has ebbs and flows. It follows our children’s natural energy, so it is highly unlikely to look anything like the uniform schedule of school. If things are quiet right now, think of all the intangible things your child is doing, such as making informed and aligned choices about how to spend their time, giving themselves permission to rest, learning what it is to be in a safe space and in respectful relationships. Look at what they’re valuing and what they’re curious about, how they make and advocate for their boundaries. And see if you can learn to enjoy these quiet, but intangibly rich, times (see my blog post It’s time to redefine doing nothing). Remember all the other times that the quiet moments have then given way to new ideas, thoughts and interests.
- Try to unpick your feelings. If you feel like your child really does need something more in their lives, then see if you can get into a lighter, more exploratory space. Partner up with your child in this space to chat about possibilities. Be honest about your feelings and listen with an open heart and mind to what your child says. They may have a very different perspective.
- It may be that whilst your children are fine with how things are, life doesn’t feel enough for you right now. If your children are young, you may be missing having more time and freedom to do things that are nourishing to you. If you have a child who has some social anxiety, life might well feel “smaller” than you would like it to. It’s normal to mourn the things we thought we might have. If this is the case, are there any adjustments you can make to help you meet your needs too?
- Try to not compare yourself to other families. Everyone has their ups and downs and everyone puts on their best face in public. Not-enoughness feeds on these comparisons.
- It is really helpful to have some good unschooling friends you can check in with and share your thoughts with in a non-judgemental space. If you don’t have anyone in person to chat to, consider finding a supportive online group.
A PLACE ON A HILL 
Leave a comment