Marriage is about building a life together, whether from having a family or being content with your partner alone. To those who are married and have kids, it’s a blessing to have a family, offspring that carry the family name, and kids that bring joy and happiness to your lives. From the moment they arrive in the world to their first steps and words, and eventually growing up into their own, deciding to have children isn’t an easy choice but it’s a rewarding thing to do. Sure the sleepless nights parents go through since the baby is born is tiring and the constant worrying even if the kids are functioning adults never goes away. Still, each child born comes with its personality, unique traits and quirks, hopes and dreams, and plans on how they want to live their lives in the future.
Any parent always wants the best for their children, including but not limited to wanting them to attend good schools, get good grades, not mix with the bad crowd, and stay out of trouble. These parental instincts start kicking in the moment a pregnancy has been made and yet all the meticulous planning and hopes made by parents to guarantee the child’s future to be promising can be a little invasive and disrespectful towards the child’s dreams.
There have been countless times when parents insert their vision of perfection into the lives of their children. Parents can get a bit controlling and pushy when it comes to deciding on a hobby or after-school activity for the children to join, for instance, a kid wants to paint but the parents insist on fencing, a teenager who wants to enroll in a certain college but the parents want something with more prestige and elite. We grew up seeing people who had their dreams sidelined to fit into the box their parents made for them. We hear quotes like “My son is going to be the greatest of doctors.” or “My daughter is going to be an engineer.” “my son will follow my footsteps and be a soccer player.” etc.
While parents know best, sometimes they can force their dreams and expectations onto their children and live vicariously through them, as if their children are their second chance to do the things they couldn't do when they were their age.
The tendency of parents to make things right through their children happens deliberately and unconscionably. In their mind, they want what’s best for their kids, to have the opportunities they never got when they were kids, and to make them experience the joy, glamour, and glory of going to prestigious colleges, or following a stellar career in sports or arts or whatever. They usually dismiss their children’s dreams because they don’t understand their value and they assume that the plans they push into their children are the ones that will make them safe and set for life.
There are various signs and behaviors parents make which indicate that they’re forcing and imposing their dreams onto their children like:
1- Forcing children to do things they don’t want to do
2- Seeing a child’s behavior and activities as a reflection of the parents’ worth.
3- Punishing a child for poor extracurricular performance.
4- Belittling or ignoring the child’s needs or interests
5- Referring to the child’s accomplishments with the plural “we,”
What parents fail to understand is that putting high expectations and inserting their dreams into their children’s lives will have immense repercussions, whether mentally, or physically. Not to mention when parents enforce their dreams onto their children, these children grow up with the traumas boiling and finally snapping onto their children, repeating the same cycle again and again.
Parents who do that are stopping their children from learning and experiencing the rise and fall of any hobbies, careers, and even love.
These kids grow up with cynicism, not believing in pursuing dreams, and any shed of hope and joy is almost gone.
There’s a thin line between investing in the children’s future and imposing their dreams on them. To be completely fair, there are times when parents enforce their dreams onto their kids based on guaranteeing them financial security and not living vicariously through them because simply these parents grew up in hard times and conditions, so they want to make their offspring live the best life possible; however, accidentally erasing the offspring’s desires won’t make him happy, even if the parents sole purpose is to prevent harm, harm will happen. Life isn’t always about winning, and no matter how many times our parents want us to avoid something or choose the safe path, loss will follow, pain is a part of life. Parents need to be supportive, kind, even if they don’t 100% agree on their children’s career or life, as long as it’s not harming anyone, as long they aren’t pressured into doing thing, as long as they’re aware, parents must be there.
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