You may know this from your own childhood experience: parents can have a lot of expectations for their children. While every parent naturally wants their child to share their deepest values, sometimes they go further in wanting their child to share all of their interests, opinions, and goals, too. Sometimes, parents forget that their child is her own person, and as such, she has the right to forge her own path.
It’s so easy to daydream about your child when you become pregnant. You imagine ballet recitals, basketball games, speech and debate medals, law degrees, even grandchildren! You start to plot their education and their extracurriculars. You imagine how they’ll look, how they’ll dress, and the experiences you’ll have together [1]. But we need to be reminded that these are daydreams; your child’s future is a total mystery yet to be revealed.
Meet your beloved stranger
Your lifelike daydreams will start to fade as early as day one. The actual sight of baby after she is born, her reactions, her moods — that little wriggling baby at the hospital has her own mind, temperament, and experiences!
This can be difficult to encounter. It’s not unusual to have to grieve your imagined experience of baby, because in the face of reality, you realize the person you created in your mind does not actually exist. This baby, child, teenager, and adult in front of you? She exists.
So now you get to meet her! Your child, with her quirks, likes and dislikes, goals and dreams, challenges and tantrums, and a future all her own, lived out one day and one phase at a time.
The danger of a false self
But some parents can’t let go of the imagined child and the imagined future. In the most harmful scenarios, they may spend most of their child’s youth trying to force her into the mold they created, dictating her interests and goals. This harms the child’s psyche, because while she may resist being pushed into the ill-fitting mold, she also wants to please her parents and not disappoint them. This brings conflict, confusion, fear of rejection, and insecurity in pursuing what she truly wants. The suppression of her own identity and the resulting internal conflict can manifest as relationship dysfunction or trouble building a life as an adult.
A child can’t save your marriage
During pregnancy, it’s common for the new parents-to-be to consider how a baby will affect their marriage and their home. In some cases, parents expect or hope that the baby will bring them closer together, giving them the shared project of raising and nurturing their child. They expect to feel pride and satisfaction in parenthood.
There is nothing wrong with this expectation, but couples should be aware that a child will bring different stressors at each stage of development. From nighttime crying to toddler tantrums, from school discipline issues to teenage rebellion, your child will make mistakes or personal choices that bring conflict to your family and marriage. As such, betting that a baby will bring stability or longevity to a marriage is just not reflective of reality.
Your baby is not responsible for strengthening your marriage. She can’t do it, and it’s not fair to ask her to. That task lies with you and your spouse.
Conclusion
Your child will be her own growing person. She’ll need her parents to guide, support, and listen to her. She’ll look to you to affirm her in her challenges, dreams, and goals. Don’t impose your expectations or your image of who she should be, but let her bloom! Love her for the unique human being she is and is becoming. As Kahlil Gibran wrote in his poem “On Children”: “Your children are not your children. / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself… You may give them your love but not your thoughts, / For they have their own thoughts. / You may house their bodies but not their souls…” [2].
