The Marketing of Perfection

I don't often agree with Echidne of the Snakes on a lot of things, but I found her post More on the Unattainable Perfection to be spot on.

Echidne discusses the idea of the Unattainable Perfection with regards to eating and exercise (you can never have too little of the first or too much of the second), but then expands the notion to other areas of life, including cosmetics, mothering, and sex.

I tend to view all this striving for perfection to be a perverse melding of the Puritan philosophy of avoiding sin with modern marketing. Most of us were brought up to believe in delayed gratification (it works well for gaining achievement), but marketing tends to work on the most vulnerable aspects of our self-esteem (attractiveness or parenting skills, for example).

The results have been a society of more educated, less confident people than ever before. How did we get to the point where a 50-year-old woman is supposed to look better than she did when she was 20? I'm not just talking about the old joke about trading in a 40-year-old woman for two 20s. I'm talking about really expecting a middle aged woman to be thinner, smoother, and better-looking than she was at 20.

It's not that I'm against diet and exercise. And it is certainly helpful for parents to read up on nutrition and parenting techniques. But is it really harmful to your child if you introduce vegetables before fruits? Or if you don't read the Wall Street Journal as a bedtime story? Or if you allow them to watch Spongebob Squarepants?

Echidne is right when she says that moderation is the key. One thing you learn when you have multiple children is that you can't do everything, be everywhere, and have everything all the time. The main thing your kids need isn't new stuff or more activities, but more of you. I love when my son tells me all the minutiae of his day, not because I didn't know that water is a powerful force, but because he's sharing himself with me and I know that he'll do less of that as he gets older.

The important part of eating or exercise or parenting or even buying pretty clothes is because you enjoy it, not because an ad or article tells you doing so is better (and, conversely, you are a worse person if you don't). As a conservative, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the morality involved in various choices more than some of my liberal friends. But I also do that because I'm a parent and I'm required to take the long view of events. Even with those responsibilities, though, I've come to recognize that an extra hour of television isn't going to damage my kids sometimes. Especially if we're cuddled up watching it together.