Lifelong Adherence To Expectations From Childhood

LIFELONG ADHERENCE TO EXPECTATIONS FROM CHILDHOOD

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.    11-13

ABSTRACT:  The positive and negative consequences of continuing in adult life to attempt to fulfill what we believed was desired of us in childhood are explored.

KEY WORDS:  ideals, childhood, shaping, roles, self, reinforcement

As children, all of us have some understanding of behaviors and roles that we believe our parents or caregivers want us to do or fill, as well as those that they wish to discourage.  These  behaviors are typically rewarded or punished (being “good,” being “bad,” talking back, playing football well, doing well in school, acting more maturely than would be expected for one’s age, being nice to others, being selfish, being tough, “being a man,” becoming a doctor, etc.).  Most of us respond to these rewards and punishments by trying to do what adults want of us, although depending on the form and degree of those rewards and punishments, some resistance or rebellion may occur.

If internalized, these expectations become ideals for us, and we use them as part of the standards by which we judge ourselves. An ideal is what we are “supposed to be” (or do) rather than just what adults want us to be or do or expect of us.  Ideals and expectations both involve satisfaction if we fulfill them and internal conflict, shame, guilt, and/or self-punishment if we view ourselves as failing to live up to them. 

If most of this parental guidance or coercion is aimed at personally or socially productive behavior (brushing your teeth regularly, treating people well), then going along with it is usually in our best interest, but if it isn’t consistent with our personalities or talents, then to continue to hold it as an ideal and attempt to fulfill it can create problems.  During development, we are capable of trying all sorts of behaviors, but as adults, conflicts between who we are and who we believe we are supposed to be are more serious.  If the expectations and ideals that we have accepted growing up are not compatible with our personalities and talents, then we must deal with whether to continue to please others by conforming to and honoring the ideals that we have accepted from others, or to take the risky step of changing our ideals to some that are more compatible with our adult views of ourselves and of the world. 

If one has been expected to become a doctor, and one has accepted this as an ideal, and if one has the intellectual capability and is accepted into medical school, then becoming a doctor may be possible, but one should ask whether this “feels right” to one in terms of one’s other values and pleasures.  If one is inspired by painting considerably more than by learning about the body, then there is a conflict, and one must weigh the rewards of pleasing one’s parents by being a doctor (plus the rewards to oneself of that role and career) while missing out on an art career, versus disappointing one’s parents and pursuing art as a career.  The consequences of changing directions might be even greater if one had been expected to become a professional athlete but then changed to art!

This conflict is even more intense if it is not just a question of pleasing or disappointing one’s parents, but also involves still trying to gain parents’ conditional acceptance by pleasing them.  It is much easier to risk making the change to do what one wants to do if one is confident that parents will still love and accept one but much harder if one expects the parents to always thereafter view one as a failure and refuse to “forgive” one.

Many of us are in this bind of fearing to displease parents because of feared disapproval or rejection, and we rarely talk about it with anyone, because we sense, correctly, that it would reveal a weakness that would be more appropriate for us as children than for us as adults.  As a result, many people soldier on doing what they don’t really want to do, out of fear of this disapproval and rejection (which we often generalize to our peers and to society in general as well).  You can check out whether you are being affected by this dilemma by being honest with yourself about whether you are really doing what you want to do.  This applies to every area—your job or vocation, whether to have children, where to live, who to marry, how to spend your weekends, and so forth and so on.  If you would really rather have your life arranged differently, what keeps you from doing it?  Leaving aside the practicalities of capabilities and costs and considering only others’ reactions, whose disapproval, disappointment, or rejection keeps you from making some changes?

If you have made life choices in order to please others or gain their love or acceptance, imagine what it would be like not to have to prove yourself any longer, what it would be like to be free to be you no matter who that was.  You might miss the security of knowing what you are “supposed to do,” but the relaxation and release from a straitjacket of expectations (and conflictful ideals) could be even more valuable.  You would no longer have to cringe every time you wondered if something you had done or said has angered or disappointed significant others.  You would be free to be happy.  You may have derived some satisfaction or happiness from your success in pleasing others, but the joy in being yourself and using all of your talents in the world would far surpass that.

Of course, making changes after one’s life is already established in certain important ways has its practical difficulties (getting additional training, moving to another city, how one’s spouse and children will feel about the changes, etc.), and we must always be realistic about these new goals.  It is not productive to set new goals that are fantasies and not compatible with one’s actual abilities or are simply not possible in the environment.  Those in boring jobs that do not use their abilities are in an especially difficult position, since in modern industrial society, many tasks are needed that are in fact boring and make little use of personal qualities or abilities, and alternatives may be hard to find.

The life circumstance that is most prohibitive of some changes is raising children, whose welfare “should” be paramount for us.  It is easier to leave a marriage in which there are no children than to leave a spouse and children.  There are circumstances, therefore, in which one’s decision probably should be to honor one’s commitment to childrearing before making changes that would be of serious detriment to those children, although in some families it would actually be better for the children for the parents to separate, and the spouse who institutes the separation might in some families also take the children.

To risk the disapproval, disappointment, or rejection of significant others is a major challenge, but not to act risks self-hatred and self-rejection, which can be even worse over the long run and which prevents you from achieving the degree of maturity and life satisfaction that you might otherwise achieve.  It may be better overall to do what is “right” for you and resolve to work out as best you can any relationship consequences.  Even if you cannot get the acceptance of significant others, it may be best for you to do what is “right” for you and to feel good about yourself.  The key to making this shift possible is for you to no longer hold yourself to a rule above all other rules of always pleasing those other people.  It is also not unreasonable to reverse the direction of these expectations, so that you now believe that they “should” accept you as you are (at least as long as you are treating them decently), rather than continuing to expect yourself to please them.  As an adult, you have a right to do what is best for you, as long as it is not unreasonably harming others, and it is not reasonable in this day and age for parents to determine their childrens’ important life choices.  You will probably have to work with yourself for a while to convince yourself of the appropriateness of this role reversal, but it is probably in the interest of your emotional health and your happiness to make this shift.

This analysis has focused on roles and achievements, but the reasoning and value choices apply equally to all expectations of others—degree of sociableness, customs of all sorts, conformance, dress, agreeableness, the assumption that one will take care of parents in old age, etc., etc.  The argument is the same in every case.  What is the best thing for you under the circumstances and given careful consideration of all of the consequences of each possible choice (which includes how your actions will affect others)?  These consequences include our own emotional reactions to our choices, consequences far in the future as well as immediate consequences, how our behavior impacts others, the reactions of others to whatever behavior we choose (and our reactions to their reactions, etc.).  This is not an argument for simply doing in every case what would seem to be more immediately enjoyable, since long-term rewards can be much more important than immediate enjoyment.  One might appropriately decide that the best thing for one’s life is to stay home and take care of one’s parents if that will be emotionally rewarding and financially feasible, before making certain life changes.

Every option has negative as well as positive consequences.  If

we choose an artistic career, then we should be prepared to give up excessive alcohol use, since it probably would eventually impair the physical abilities needed to produce our art (and perhaps our artistic judgment as well), and we should accept that we must also find a way to prepare for retirement, given the fact that art often pays poorly and given that it would be unfair to other family members for us to presume that they would support us in our old age.

In order to make the best possible decisions about one’s life, it is important to be aware of potential misleading input from one’s own culture.  Just because something is popular, we cannot conclude that it is sure to lead to a better life.  In current U. S. culture, for example, there is a strong message from the culture in general to “move forward” and “take risks,” as well as to please oneself (as opposed to careful consideration, moderation, and self-control).  It would be well for us to remember that in many other cultures, the weight of cultural wisdom would be on tradition and the welfare of the social groupings involved, rather than solely on our own happiness.  Before making a major life choice, you should ask yourself whether people in those cultures that are not as hopeful regarding change are happier with their lives than people in your own culture, and you should investigate what the outcomes are for people in your culture who have made each of the choices that you are considering.  Of course, it is difficult to accurately assess outcomes for those in other cultures, since we are not a part of those other cultures and cannot judge with certainty about whether they are happier, but we must recognize that there are many ways to live a good life.

These arguments are intended to be freeing but not to support irresponsibility.  They rather attempt to shift responsibility more to yourself, so that you rather than others are making the final decisions about your behavior and your benefits and losses.  For some people the choice to reject parental expectations of care in old age would be the right one, if that choice were necessary to enable them to have an extremely rewarding career (and they might choose later on to take care of the parents anyway).  For some people, it could be the wrong choice, if while it enabled them to have the desired career, it also resulted in suffering from lifelong guilt about doing so that they could not resolve.  Choice is complicated, but in general we feel better about ourselves and our lives if we make the choices rather than letting others make those important choices for us!

There is an assumption, of course, underlying this line of thinking that your choices for yourself will be better than those of others for you.  This is generally true, because we know ourselves and our needs and feelings better than others, and because the wishes of others for us are so often contaminated by their natural wish for us to be and to act in ways that will benefit them, even if they are to our detriment.  If you are one of the few whose cognitive capacities are not sufficient for making these choices for yourself, then you may wish to consult with someone with more experience and better judgment to help you.

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