The Path of High Expectations for Children Has Land Mines

Sounds caustic.  Even bitter. But many suffer its truth.

I was the victim of sorts of well intentioned parents that set high expectations for a capable child. I did the same to mine.When I knew my daughter was bright and wanted to achieve, I began to set the tone of expectations needed to get there. At eleven years old she thought she needed good grades to get to college and a good college education to get a good job and a good job to get all the world has to offer.

I thought the same as a child but then there was no Britney Spears and a lot of other things that said money was the way to happiness. We were so backward, when I played high school football, I never heard anyone talking about playing in college or the money available as a pro.

But the high expectations set for me when I was young planted a seed. When I mentioned recently to a forensic psychologist at a party that I thought my parents loved me more when I accomplished, he said “that may have been true”. The message inadvertently delivered to me was that I was what I achieved.

I don’t think I am alone in that. Achievement is great, but at what cost. More relevant is the question, what does the cost become for those close to us. Our bosses relish the frenzy. Wives may love the money. But what happens to the machine that got the good grades but now knows nothing about a stop button.

There is never enough. By fate, when I started thinking about this recently, I found that I had purchased a book called “Never Enough” about an investment banker who feeds on the glory of the game. The money is intoxicating. He becomes fabulously wealthy as he works hundred hour weeks and invests in global debt. His firm drives him on to achieve more and make partner, the world needs him, his family doesn’t know him.

The problem I found was that a career never moves fast enough and you start looking at who might be holding you up. By the same token you can never buy enough goodies to fill the hole. And then, of course, there are the other abuses to forget the daily grind and disappointments. Families get caught up in the expectations. They get used to things and having someone bring home the bacon or the whole pig or the whole farm. The players can be women as well as men.

When my children were young we lived in a yuppie neighborhood where families were caught up in getting more.  The men were hard driving and the wives needed to have more than their neighbors. It seemed half the population was attractive single moms with young children. What happened?

I left a few of the best positions ever imagined because I felt things were moving too slow. I have seen my daughter have the same impatience. My dad was intense and goal driven.  How many more generations will be infected with the drive and feeling that there is never enough. If retirement is the goal, that is a nice stop button. The goal along the way should be not to destroy everything that is worthwhile  along the way.

I now have learned different lessons and have a different perspective.  Maybe thankfully stripped of assets by my ex, I have found more peace with having less and having fewer expectations. I have opened my eyes to who I am outside of achievement and all the joyful things that can be experienced outside of a monetary award or recognition. I have learned to live easier with myself and my environment. I don’t think God has a report card for us other than treating each other respectfully.

I do not propose the world become soft, but I do propose there would be more balance if we understood that when we start setting out expectations for children, it rides with a big slice of judgment. It also delivers a message of you are not quite good enough living as you would like to live everyday when you could be doing and be so much more. Look at Kennedy. Where has  it gotten that family? Joseph got his President. Was that a blessing?

Trump is a good example of a self made man from a powerful influencing father. I read his daughter’s book and she grew up in a family with high expectations and at 24 she is already accomplished. She knows the beauty of money and the value of achievement. She understands hard work, competition, delivering value, self discipline, and generosity.  The only thing she can’t do is turn it off. She has expectations that others are not living up to and she probably has high expectations of herself that she may never quench. Her surroundings may be her evidence that she has succeeded, but in that game others always have more to signify they have achieved more. They have bested you. Not an easy concept for an over achiever to swallow.  Once started, its a blood sucking vampire.