Bruno Bettelheim: A Good Enough Parent. A Book on Child-Rearing

First I wish to acknowledgments that the book's title is derived from D. W. Winnicott's concept of the "good enough" mother. I have adapted it to both parents, since both are important for their child's development. My title suggests that in order to raise a child well one ought not to try to be a perfect parent, as much as one should not expect one's child to be, or to become, a perfect individual. Perfection is not within the grasp of ordinary human beings. Efforts to attain it typically interfere with that lenient response to the imperfections of others, including those of one's child, which alone make good human relations possible.
But it is quite possible to be a good enough parent-that is, a parent who raises his child well. To achieve this, the mistakes we make in rearing our child-errors often made just because of the intensity of our emotional involvement in and with our child-must be more than compensated for by the many instances in which we do right by our child. The purpose of this book is to facilitate being such a good enough parent.