The Conscious Parent

those medals she won—they have been useless. She might as well have
done nothing.” This mother nullified her daughter’s successes simply
because they didn’t materialize into the precise future she hoped they
would.
Children with 101 averages are being rejected by Harvard. Children
with 2200 SAT scores are retaking the test over and over to obtain that
perfect 2400. So many children cry in front of me, lamenting the fact
they only attained a 93 on a test. The parents, unflinching in their
dogmatism, argue with me over the shoulder of their crying child, “You
don’t understand how important it is to be an alumnus of a prestigious
school.” They look at me with condescension.
Such parents don’t realize that when we set a trajectory for our
children’s education, romantic life, or career, we immediately limit who
they can develop into. They have the power to manifest realities we
haven’t even begun to imagine. It’s not for us to endorse a medical
career over an acting career, a marriage at twenty or a marriage at thirty
—or even a marriage at all.
Many a clever parent knows how to disguise their dictates as
“guidance,” though in reality what we have to say is laced with a hidden
agenda. Our children aren’t fools. They know what we want from them
even before we utter a word. Our lips may say, “Follow your dreams,”
but they realize we often mean, “Follow mine!”
Let your children want to attend a fancy school, then work hard for it,
rather than you being the one who wants it for them. True, it might
frighten you to engage your children in such a “hands off” manner. You
may believe such under-involvement will prove detrimental to them,