Batting .300 is excellent. Parenting is too.

I am not a baseball person.

Let’s begin there.

I do not understand all the rules, I cannot calculate any manner of statistic, and I could not tell you with confidence what people are doing with all that sunflower seed chewing. But I have it on good authority that a .300 batting average is really, really good. Elite, even. Which means that if you get a hit 3 out of 10 times, people are impressed. They write things about you. You get paid actual money to continue swinging at balls with a stick.

And yet in parenting, many of us are out here acting like anything less than 10 for 10 means we should retire in disgrace.

It’s bananas.

We parents give ourselves (and Culture helps cement) a very weird idea: that good parenting means catching every moment, responding perfectly every time, staying regulated in every conflict, choosing the exact right words, setting the exact right limit, offering the exact right amount of empathy, and never ever having a tone.

Let’s all formally release ourselves from that trap, please.

Because just as .300 is a great batting average in baseball, it’s also a pretty great metric for parenting.

Research would show that “good parenting” (and maybe we should call it “good enough parenting” while we’re at it)  is hitting maybe 30% of the opportunities in exactly the way you wish you had.

The other 70% is not proof that you’re failing; it’s proof that you are a human being having a relationship with another human being.

Does that change how you’re thinking about the parenting equation?

Once we stop demanding perfection, we can finally see what those missed swings are actually for.

They are for repair.

That moment when you snap and then come back.

That moment when you misread your child completely and realize, ohhh, this wasn’t defiance, this was overwhelm.

That moment when you enforce the boundary just fine but wrap it in too much irritation and need to circle back later.

That moment when your own stress, sleep deprivation, hormones, work pressure, sensory overload, marriage tension, existential dread, or low blood sugar gets into the driver’s seat and you say, “Welp. Not my finest inning.”

That is not the end of the story.

That is the perfect time to repair.

In fact, repair is one of the main ways children learn what healthy relationships feel like. Not because relationships are smooth all the time. They are not. Ask literally any married couple, sibling pair, workplace team, or person who has ever tried to leave the house with a toddler who’s actually wearing their shoes.

Healthy relationships are not rupture-free. They are repair-rich.

That’s what kids need from us.

Not parents who nail every opportunity.

Parents who know how to come back after the miss.
Parents who can say, “I got that wrong.”
Parents who can say, “You didn’t deserve that tone.”
Parents who can say, “I’m still holding the boundary, but I want to reconnect.”

So the next time you find yourself replaying the day and cringing at all the places where you “should have” done better, I want you to picture a baseball player walking back to the dugout after a miss. He does not fall to his knees and announce that his career is over because he failed to bat 1.000. He understands that missing the ball is built into the game.

Parenting is like that too.

You will miss cues.
You will miss chances.
You will miss the wise, calm response and go with the tired, cranky, human one.

And then, if you’re paying attention, you’ll get another swing.

Here are the two things I hope you remember:

First, start measuring your parenting by your willingness to repair, not by your ability to avoid every rupture. Those are not the same thing.

Second, when you do miss, skip the shame spiral and go straight to reconnection. “I’m sorry. Let me try again.” That sentence will take you farther than perfection ever could.

A .300 batting average is great in baseball.

And in parenting, batting .300 with honesty, humility, humor, and repair? That’s excellent.

And if you need help noticing where the repair opportunities are, or figuring out how to take them without drowning in guilt and shame, you can schedule a coaching session with me. This is the work. Not being perfect. Being real enough to come back together after the miss.