Every few months, my life explodes. I have three part-time jobs, volunteer commitments, a small child and husband who deserve loads of lavished attention, playgroup, daycare arrangements, relationships with neglected friends and totally ignored family members, the sweet release of bad reality TV, a pile of books to read, a very cluttered apartment and too many groceries to buy. I am sure you have your very own and perhaps very similar life explosion scene, where all the bits of your identity and day planner scatter and fall at your feet.

It's like it takes a detonation to make me stop, slow down, start saying no, stop putting so much pressure on myself, stop worrying about doing everything perfectly and start feeling filled up by doing just enough.

Of course, this isn't radical. The message to give up perfection and aim for enough, especially when it comes to parenting, is the topic of many of my conversations with friends and the screaming message of more and more articles I read in parenting magazines and self-help books. Yet and still, it is a hard message to absorb, to put into action, to make my outlook rather than just another handy tip. And so I feel almost nostalgically grateful for Anna Quindlen, who gets it right every single time and who says in her own familiar, feminist, reassuring way, to stop the hyper-scheduling and tendencies to approach motherhood like a job. Instead, she says to hang back from our culture's perfection intentions and just hang out with your kids. Be the good enough mother, she says, and have a good time.

When I'm backing out of volunteering this week and passing over the music class registration, if I have even the slightest twinge of guilt or doubt, if I hear the ticking of my calendar in the background, I hope I can remember even a few of Quindlen's words. And I hope the ones I hear are, "There's the problem with turning motherhood into martyrdom...A good time is what they remember long after toddler programs and art projects are over. The rest is just scheduling."