“Mom! You can’t expect me to do it perfect every time!”
Until I heard my daughter’s words, I hadn’t given much thought to my perfectionism as a parent. But for teens and parents alike, perfectionism can be easily overlooked because it lies tucked neatly underneath “good” values like a commitment to high standards or a strong drive.
Perfectionism, defined as “the refusal to accept any standard short of perfection,” comes hand-in-hand with adverse effects. Teens with perfectionistic tendencies can be consumed with anxiety about not meeting the highest standards, which can lead to frozen inaction or harsh self-criticism. Similarly, they may be unable to feel joy or satisfaction in a task until it has been completed perfectly, and they are devastated otherwise. Applied to our parenting, perfectionism looks our sky-high expectations for our kids and an underappreciation for their efforts.
The Pursuit of Excellence
The call to “aim higher” bombards our teenagers in every aspect of their lives, so it’s no wonder many of them develop unrelentingly high expectations for themselves. When we parents over-emphasize the good Christian call to pursue excellence, we may unintentionally reinforce the misguided notion that we and our kids must be as flawless as possible.
Not only that, but our teens need to know there is a big distinction between the culture’s urging to “aim higher” and the Christian’s call to pursue excellence (Col 3:23). The Christian’s pursuit of excellence is anchored in the broader call to Christian stewardship, rather than the attempt to self-justify or seek our own glory.
Stewardship begins with the acknowledgment that our lives belong not to ourselves but to God. We are not our own masters, but stewards of what our Master has graciously allotted to us – our time, resources, minds, gifts, families, and talents.
Some of our perfectionistic teens may feel that it’s precisely because we are stewards for such a worthy Master, that we need to attain the highest excellence for Him. Certainly, Scripture exhorts us to be faithful with what we are entrusted, and that means we do our given tasks “as for the Lord and not for men” (Col. 3:23). The Bible calls us to make good use of our time and resources, while avoiding sloth and idleness (Ecc 9:10, Matt 5:16, 1 Pet 4:10).
With that in mind, our perfectionistic teens need the reminder that their Master’s heart for his stewards is unlike that of any earthly employer, coach, or authority figure for their subordinates. The way to our Master’s heart, to his approval and his pleasure in us, is not through the flawlessness of our service to him.
Pleasing the Master
In Luke 10:38-42, we find the familiar story of Mary and Martha, and their different responses to Jesus’ home visit. Martha busies herself with the work of hospitality, while Mary opts to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening. Martha, unhappy that Mary is not helping her with what needs to be done, complains to Jesus that he should tell Mary to get up and help her.
Perfectionistic parents and teenagers relate well to Martha. She desires to honor Jesus in the way she knows how – by trying to do the best work she can possibly do. She wants to ensure that things are up to (or higher than) the standard of the day. But Jesus’ response would’ve shocked her:
He says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)
As a teenager, my perfectionistic lens had me seeing this interaction as Jesus’s critique of which sister was “a better” follower of Jesus. I took the application of this passage to be that I needed to use my time more like Mary to be a “good” follower of Jesus. This prompted me to take all my perfectionistic striving and channel it into Bible reading and prayer. (FYI, middle-school-me gave up on my Bible reading challenge somewhere in Numbers).
But Jesus is not telling Martha that good followers show their goodness by wanting to sit at his feet rather than serving their guests. Neither is He telling Martha that she should lower her standards because hosting isn’t important, which would dismiss her desire to honor him with the best she thought she had to offer.
Rather, Jesus shows a great deal of tenderness for Martha’s imperfect desire to please him. Jesus was loving Martha by speaking to her a truth she needed to hear: He had come over not because he needed to be served by her and Mary. He had come over to be with them, because he loved them.
As parents, we want our teens to know that Jesus does not need us to do excellent work or to be perfect in order for him to be pleased with us. Only “one thing” is needed, and that is that Jesus loves us and wants to be with us.
A Unique Stewardship, A Unique Master
How can this be? What kind of a strange stewardship is this, where the Master does not demand excellence, if not perfection, from his stewards?
Our stewardship is unique because our Master is unlike any other. Not only does our Master make no requirements for excellence from us who serve Him, but he already paid the price for our mistakes with His own life. Though he is perfect and sinless and excellent in every way, he went to the cross to die the death we deserve, securing us for himself forever (2 Cor 5:18).
For Mary, there was nothing left to do to win her master’s good pleasure but to rest in the heartbeat of his love. So she sat at Jesus’s feet, receiving what he freely gave out of his love – himself. Like Mary and Martha, we live more fully as God’s beloved children by resting and growing in the knowledge of his unfathomably deep love for us imperfect sinners (Eph 3:17-19).
We perfectionists can relinquish our harried pursuit of flawlessness because we stand on Jesus’s perfection and his righteousness. We take seriously our master’s call to be holy (1 Pet 1:15-16) because our good conduct pleases him the way that a child’s wise choices pleases his parents. Grounded in the knowledge that we are already loved by a master who is already pleased, we can pursue excellence and faithfulness in our tasks.
In our unique stewardships – both of ourselves as parents, and our teens’ of their lives – there is courage in the face of failure, significance in the steps taken regardless of their outcome (Job 42:2), and rest in the promise of future perfection (Phil 1:6). Our teenagers are gifts from God, and they are not their excellence or their pursuit of excellence. As imperfect parents, we get to reflect Christ’s love for them by taking every opportunity to show our love for them, apart from what they do, in ways they can see and understand.
Our Father in heaven is pleased with us (Zeph 3:17). God loves and values us apart from the imperfections or excellencies of what we do, and that’s the one thing we perfectionistic parents, and our teens, really need.
Body Image: Valuing God’s Good Gift by Andrea Lee is now available for pre-order!
