The Perfect Need for Imperfections

Having the body of a mother is not a form of leprosy

Recently, I turned to my husband and seriously asked, “Do you think our son’s big ears will hurt his success in business?”
My son’s ears, I should explain, are the same ears of his siblings, his mother and his grandmother — they are large. My husband stared at me for a moment with his “who are you and what have you done with my wife” look and said, “Absolutely not.”
He then shared a few bits of common sense found in men raised on a 90-acre farm, and I felt at peace.
Upon reflection I did realize the ridiculousness of my question (which you realized three sentences ago). In fact, I was shocked that I had even thought it. It has made me rethink the subtle influence of society’s obsession with perfection in my very own life. This obsession isn’t just prevalent, it’s embedded in all that we see, hear and experience.
In daily life we can feel cheated if we don’t have the best car, the nicest home or the newest version of the latest gadgets. This is despite research showing that those considered at poverty level today have many of the same conveniences the middle class had 30 years ago.
Add to that the new trend that there is something fundamentally wrong with looking like we have had children or that we’ve really lived at all.
In Jeffrey R. Holland’s book “Modesty, Makeovers and the Pursuit of Physical Beauty,” he quotes actress Halle Berry as saying, “We’ve become obsessed with beauty and the fountain of youth … I’m really saddened by the way women mutilate [themselves] in search of that. I see women [including young women] … pulling this up and tucking that back. It’s like a slippery slope. [You can’t get off of it.] … It’s really insane … what society is doing to women.”
Now this column is not a boycott on all plastic surgery.
I’m so grateful for the skills that help car accident victims regain a normal life and help children with cleft palates eat well for the first time in their lives. But I do have to ask myself, when did having a few laugh lines or a tummy fold become akin to leprosy? When did looking like a mother become taboo?
I was at a dancing activity with my third grader last year when he looked at the teeny blonde next to me and then said, “Mom, you’re fat but I love you.”
He lost his allowance for the next 10 years.
I felt the need to firmly tell him, like a member of some kind of AA meeting, “I have wrinkles, post-baby fat, and I am 42 years old. I have lived a full and juicy life, and I’m not ashamed to look it.”
It seems this thread of perfection starts weaving earlier and stronger. I read an article by another celebrity who, as a teenage girl, asked her mother if she was pretty. Her mother looked up from the mirror and said, “You will be after you have a nose job.”
I contrast that with my tearful discussion as a young teenager with my own mother about the same dreaded ears as my son. I had tried various ear shrinking methods that didn’t work — such as gum behind my ears and tying my ears to my head. So I asked for an operation. Thankfully, my mother said no because big ears were a part of who I was and that I was beautiful.
The subtle effects of this sort of Brave New World perfect can be serious. I received the following e-mail from a reader: “I was five months pregnant with my first child and waiting for an amniocentesis. I questioned the nurse why I needed this procedure. Her response was, “If we find anything wrong you have the choice to abort.”
I sat there and cried — not for my baby, but for me. For the first time in my life I realized that I didn’t have to be perfect for someone to really truly love me! I didn’t care if this baby wasn’t PERFECT, I wanted her and nothing was going to change that. I finally realized how God feels about us. I grew up with a father who didn’t allow his love to be given unless you were perfect … I had been thinking of my imperfect life [lately] and feeling that if it were perfect, things would be better. They are better! Life is GREAT!”
Life is great. We can breathe, live, love and be grateful for what is, even if that includes big ears.

About the Author
Connie Sokol is an at-home mother and president of LIFEChange, a program to enhance women’s lives.
For more information, visit www.lifechangeprogram.com.

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