It was my mom’s birthday two days ago.

I called her, distracted. ‘Happy Birthday’… but my fingers were preoccupied with my keyboard. I want to be a good daughter. As I hung up the phone, I could feel it in my gut, throat and heart that I wasn’t. Not in that moment.

What does it mean to be a good daughter? A ‘great’ daughter?

Can you be great at a role that you were born into? I get ‘great’ and ‘perfect’ confused a lot. They seem to overlap. I want to be a perfect daughter, but in my life I’ve learned that the harder I strive for perfection, the further from it I travel. My inability to grasp the impossible pulls down on my shoulders and leaves me feeling angry, frustrated and annoyed. I strive for perfection and end in mediocrity – no worse: indifference, impatience, and blame.

What does it mean to be a ‘great’ parent?

That feels like an easier question to answer because it’s easy to understand that perfection in parenting is impossible. Kids are impressionable. You’ll screw them up no matter how hard you try. It’s unavoidable. But on the reverse side, parents also lift their children up. They sacrifice their own interests in favour of the health and happiness of their children. She had a vision for the family she wanted – the life as a mother that she wanted. And she achieved that, despite all the obstacles that could have broken her – understandably too.

That’s greatness. My mom is/was a great parent.

Have I ever sacrificed for my mom? No. Are you supposed to? I don’t know. Is that what would make a child great? Does a ‘great’ child put the interests of their parent above their own, or is there a different measurement for children? Maybe it’s impossible to be a great child until you have the ability to give back in kind to the parents who raised you, and make all their efforts worth while.

I want to send my mom on a cruise. I want to buy her a home. I want to wire her money. Not the reverse. She covered my plane ticket home. In response, I complained about being stranded in the family living room because I can’t drive and our little square of Nova Scotia doesn’t have the same options for recreation as Vancouver, BC. I was ungrateful.

My mom wanted to be a perfect mom, but instead she was a great mom. I strive to be a perfect child, and I fail over and over again. I’m not a great daughter. I can’t send my mom on a cruise, buy her a home, or take my entire family our for a fancy dinner, on me. At least not yet. I tell myself.

I’m reminded of my perception of success several years ago. I wanted to belong. I thought that success would help me to belong. That’s not what happened. My small successes isolated me further. I belong now, but not because I’ve achieved some level of success. I belong because I care. I stopped placing so much emphasis on myself and my accomplishments, and became curious and interested in other people.

My mom loves me unconditionally. I’m sure it’s hard sometimes. As young children I think we see our parents as Gods. Then, as we age, we notice their imperfections and judge them profusely – unapologetically – for all the ways they don’t measure up to perfection. At least I did. I wanted perfection in others so badly. I wanted the thing I strived for to be possible. I needed stability. Perfection seemed sturdy, but the family structure is constantly leaning and shifting. It’s not perfect, and that’s scary.

“I stopped placing so much emphasis on myself and my accomplishments, and became curious and interested in other people.”

I wrote that above, and I want to repeat it. Is that the secret to being a ‘great’ child? Being interested. Seeing the person who raised you not as a ‘mom’ but as a person who tried their best. Maybe the ‘secret’ to being a great child lies in the following words: Forgiving, Loving, and Caring.

That feels right. And you don’t need money to ‘do’ those things. You just need a phone call, an undistracted hand, and a sincere ear. I can do that.