I just realized that once again, I didn’t have my kids participate in the library’s summer reading program.

It’s not because I’m morally against it. Far from it! Sure, external motivation can overwhelm internal motivation if you overdo it. But my kids love reading on its own accord and a few prizes won’t change that. I was a voracious reader in elementary school and still enjoyed the Book-It prize pizzas and buttons. At least back when Pizza Hut still had the fake Tiffany lamps at each table and good pizza.

It wasn’t because I disliked the prizes. A few years ago I may have “forgotten” to fulfill the prizes. I got the first one and then realized I really didn’t want more crap in our house. But last year I remembered to log their books and we got to go to a Washington Nationals baseball game for free. It was delightful! This year was going to be something similar – if I had remembered to fill it out.

It’s not that we didn’t read. We read a lot of Squirrel Girl and Ramona and Calvin and Hobbes. (My older son and I are still working our way through Watership Down.) In fact, I entered the books I read with them in my Goodreads account! Just not the library’s site.

It was simply that I forgot. I signed both kids up and then completely forgot to do anything else with it.

But you know what? If I didn’t write this essay, no one would be the wiser. And sometimes that’s just how it goes.

We’re not supposed to be perfect parents. We can’t be perfect parents – it’s impossible. We all logically know that’s true and yet the emotional desire for it tickles at the back of so many of our minds. We just need to be “good enough parents,” as the psychologist DW Winnecott put it.

And sometimes being good enough means completely forgetting about the library’s summer reading challenge. As one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut put it, “So it goes.”