The Conscious Parent

attending such a “substandard” school, especially since they were
graduates of Yale and Columbia respectively.
When these parents made their immense disappointment known to
their son, he knew he had let them down. In the parents’ view, their son
hadn’t just failed them but had also squandered a muchtreasured family
legacy. Laden with a sense of shame, the young man entered pre-med,
pushing himself harder than ever to prove to his parents that he was
worthy of their validation, thus losing touch with his true self even more.
Many of us harbor rigid ideals of what it means to be successful. We
have external yardsticks such as a high-paying job, a flashy car, a fancy
house, the perfect neighborhood, classy friends, and so on. Then, when
we fail at a task, lose our job, or are forced to realize our children aren’t
so achievement-oriented, we feel as if we have failed in some
fundamental way. We imagine our core has been threatened, which
causes us to lash out.
When we are attached to ideals, we impose these on our children,
insistent that they preserve our carefully constructed persona of
competence. We overlook the fact that each of our children is a being
with its own calling, not realizing that only through the full
acknowledgment of our child’s unique and autonomous spirit can we
seize the spiritual opportunities inherent in parenthood.
It’s crucial to abandon all thought of why your children are the
individuals they inherently are and to guard against any tendency to
make them “wrong.” The challenge to you as a parent is to allow your
child’s spirit to emerge without your domination. Can you let go of your
relentless urge to have your children be extensions of yourself? Are you