Perfection: How To Get It And How To Convince Your Children You’ve Got It.

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Let me begin by stating something important: I am perfect. I know this because I have children, and children are biologically engineered to detect even microscopic imperfections in their parents, and they have not yet staged a coup. This means I am doing at least something right.

Now, when I say “perfect,” I don’t mean the kind of perfection you see in magazines, where people have tidy homes and matching socks and a fruit bowl that doesn’t contain a single item capable of self‑defence. No. I mean parental perfection, which is a completely different category of perfection, defined as:

 “The ability to project absolute competence while having absolutely no idea what you’re doing.”

This is the essence of parenting. It is also the essence of Authority Theatre, a performance art in which you confidently explain things you only half understand, like algebra, Wi‑Fi, or why the dishwasher makes that noise.

Children, of course, are born with a supernatural ability to sense weakness. They can smell uncertainty the way sharks smell blood. If you hesitate for even a second  even a microsecond!  they will pounce with questions such as:

- “Why?”
- “But why?”
- “But why though?”
- “But why though if the universe is expanding?”

This is why parents must maintain the illusion of perfection at all times. Not actual perfection  that would require effort  but the illusion of it, which is much easier and involves things like standing with your hands on your hips and saying “Because I said so” in a tone that suggests you have a PhD in Saying So.

The problem is that children are now surrounded by technology, which means they have access to more information than any previous generation. When I was a kid, if you asked your parents a question, they could just make something up. If you asked why the sky was blue, your dad could say, “Because the government paints it every morning,” and you’d believe him because he was tall and had muscles.

But now, if I tell my children something, they immediately check it on their phones. This means I must stay at least one Google ahead of them at all times. This is exhausting. I am not built for this. I am built for sitting down and making small groaning noises when I stand up again.

Still, I persist. Because perfection  or at least the appearance of it  is essential. For example, when something breaks in the house, my children look at me as though I am The All‑Knowing Fixer of Things. They believe I can repair anything, even though my actual repair strategy is:

1. Stare at the broken object.  
2. Make a thoughtful “Hmmm” noise.  
3. Hit it lightly.  
4. Google “how to fix thing.”  
5. Pretend I already knew that.

This works approximately 35% of the time, which is a passing grade in parenting.

The rest of the time, I simply blame the manufacturer, gravity, or “modern materials,” which is a phrase that makes you sound knowledgeable even when you are holding a toaster upside‑down and shaking it like a maraca.

But here’s the secret: children don’t actually need you to be perfect. They just need you to look like you’re trying, preferably while wearing an expression of calm wisdom and not the expression of someone who has just realised they’ve put the remote in the fridge again.

So yes, I strive for perfection. I strive for it every day. And every day I fall short, usually by breakfast. But my children still believe  or at least pretend to believe  that I know what I’m doing. And that, my friends, is true perfection.





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