Good Enough is the New Perfect

Good Enough is the New Perfect is not just the title of a new book by my friend Hollee Schwartz Temple and Chicagoan Becky Beaupre Gillespie, it's long been my own modus operandi. As proof, I offer up the fact that my first draft of this post was written on April 11 to time out with the book's official release.

So I'm a little late. Sorry.

GEITNP is, coincidentally, also the theme of my son's upcoming bar mitzvah, though I'm happy to report we now have enough table seating to accommodate all of our guests (don't even ask).

Hollee passed along a copy of her book. As the mom of a teen, I'm a veteran parent (AKA old mom) and have had years to make peace with my imperfect ways (mostly), but it's always interesting to get an insider's view of how other moms balance work, self, and family, especially ones who seem so successful.

I think in the first five or so years of motherhood, this balancing act is especially tough. Or maybe it's the first five years after leaving work that are tricky, not to mention the first five years after returning to work.

Or maybe the specific issues change, but those nagging feelings that we moms can and should be doing more (at home, at work or both) never quite go away.

So this well-researched book is like a talk with a good friend, a circle of them, really, who have been there and done that.

I was thrilled to see Chicago's "most twisted" mom, Kim Oster Holstein of Kim and Scott's Gourmet Pretzels, profiled in the book. Not profiled, exactly, it's more that Kim and the other moms in the book share their successes along with their challenges and frustrations throughout the book.

We're all in this together and this book might just offer the clues to help readers define and seek their own "new perfect."

Chicago mamas!

Local readings will take place at an April 29 Kickoff Event at Book Cellar in Lincoln Square at 7 PM and you'll have another chance to see Becky and Hollee (and, hopefully, me) on Sunday, May 1 at a reading at Andersonville's famed bookstore, Women and Children First at 4:30.

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