Dr. Howe: For good or bad, the traumatic moments in our lives often inspire us to look beyond what others expect from us. I’m sorry you suffered a stroke (especially at such a young age). It says so much about you that your recovery included achieving your PhD for you and not to fulfill your parent’s expectation.

Dr. Gomez: Thanks for the support!

Steve, Theodora & Tamra: Parenting wasn’t my intended focus in writing this article however clearly it hit a nerve for those of us trying to do the right thing for our kids. Your observations of how tricky it is to balance needed guidance and encouraging self-discovery for our kids are thoughtful and profound.

Dr. Lockwood: You point to an important step in growing out of others’ expectations–accepting that out parents “didn’t know everything…” It took me way too long to figure this out! I’m glad you were quicker than I was and your Mom sounds wonderful.

Bad to the Bone: Congratulations on liberating yourself from those expectations that didn’t fit you anymore. It is never to late to take that leap.

Twara: You are so right. This is a life-long journey. Accepting that our parents are just human beings who did their best and forgiving them, is a significant part of liberating ourselves to be ourselves. Thanks.

My mother had high expectations for me and luckily I turned out okay. Most significantly,however, she always let me now that “to be human is to error,” and I think we all need to let our children know this. We are hurting them when we make them think life is about being perfect.

NO ONE IS! Our society is “pathologically” obsessed with being perfect and multitasking and accomplishing things perfectly. This really needs to stop and once this does, I’m sure high parental expectations will become more fair and neutral as well. If there are no competitors, then there’s no need to “feel perfect.”

In addition, I have a strong feeling that there are psychological connotations to parents who hold high expectations for their children. Somewhere they feel void or either didn’t accomplish or felt they accomplished something they deemed great or utopia. The children are a means by which the parent(s) relive their lives.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” ~Robert F. Kennedy

(I love a good quote.)

I, too, am the daughter of a psychiatrist. Dad used to denigrate psychologists and said that anyone who wanted to work with people suffering from mental illness or similar problems should become a psychiatrist. While his attitude may have contributed to my not majoring in psychology in undergraduate school, it didn’t stop me from getting my doctorate some years later. Somewhere along the line, I realized that Dad, though very bright and well-read, didn’t in fact know everything, and that it was possible to disagree with him and be right.

Dr. Aletta mentions parents’ telling their children to be careful. One of the things I’m most grateful to my parents for is that they always supported the things I wanted to do and made me feel confident in myself. I asked my mother once, after becoming a parent myself, why she and my father had let me do some of the perhaps more challenging things I wanted to do. She said that her own parents had damaged her self-confidence by saying things like “You’ll never be able to manage that” and “That’s too challenging for you.” She vowed she would never do that to her children, and as far as I know, she never did.

As for Obama, I’ll bet he has the expectation thing under control. I’m looking forward to the next 4 (or years.