Hello friends,
This past summer our family spent eight days traveling together, and the dynamic between my daughters was perhaps my favorite of any vacation.
We were not perfect. As you can imagine, sisters sometimes say things to each other that land wrong. One of them would take something personally, and then say something hurtful back. In the past, an interaction like this could spiral into a half day of sibling bickering (can anyone relate?).
But what has gotten better over time is my daughters’ ability to see one another, and themselves, as imperfect human beings, and to give each other a little grace when things go sideways. This accepting and understanding of imperfection, and loving ourselves and each other anyway, is at the heart of compassion and self-compassion in our closest relationships.
There was a point in our hotel room when I reminded the girls that we are all kiwi birds. It’s my favorite metaphor from my Resilience Habits for Caregivers Course, and one I shared in this short video a few years ago. But I’ve never shared the story on my blog, so let me share it with you now.
This kiwi bird illustration is from my first workbook for kids, dedicated to my two kiwi bird daughters.
The Kiwi Bird Metaphor:
The kiwi bird is native to New Zealand. For millions of years, it lived on an island with only large birds as predators. So it evolved in a unique way. Its wings shrank to tiny things hidden under its feathers, and its bones grew too dense for flight. It can’t see well, but it has an incredible sense of smell and hearing. The kiwi was perfectly designed for its environment…
Until the 13th century when humans came to the island. And they brought cats and dogs and other animals with them. Suddenly the kiwi bird was vulnerable to a lot of predators. The circumstances the kiwi bird found itself in didn’t match the way it evolved.
Now, if you were to compare the kiwi bird to an average bird, you might think, hmm… something’s wrong with this kiwi bird.
But, if you consider the kiwi bird’s evolutionary process, you’d say it was perfectly kiwi.
This is also true of our kids and of ourselves. Each of us was born with a unique wiring. And different events and people in our lives helped to shape who we’ve become. We each have our own strengths and struggles.
If you compare any one of us to an ideal human, we’ll come up short. But we’re not meant to be measured against an ideal. We’re meant to be understood as unique beings.
That’s why on our vacation when one of us would be acting particularly imperfect, I’d remind my daughters that we are “all kiwi birds.”
It was a reminder that we are allowed to be imperfect, and we are each loveable exactly as we are. In our home we use the word “kiwi” as an adjective. If someone is being extra sensitive, if I’m up too late working, if one of us says something without thinking, we’re being kiwi. It’s not an excuse; it’s a way to understand that none of us get it right all the time.
The next time you or your kids are being imperfect, you can remember the kiwi bird metaphor. You are perfectly loveable… just as you are.
With love,
Kiwi bird Jamie Lynn
P.S. I’ll be sharing more about the kiwi bird metaphor in my TEDx talk this October 2026: https://tedxoconomowoc.com/2026-speakers
P.P.S. If you’d like weekly reminders about how to help kids (and yourself) grow self-compassion, you can join my newsletter community.