Several years ago, in Channelview, TX, a suburban housewife made international news by plotting to kill the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival. Several years later, hockey dad Thomas Junta stood accused of beating to death the father of another hockey player.
We've all seen them, the stereotypical Little League dad, or the Prom Queen mom, trying, at best, to live vicariously through their children, and at worst, trying to relive their own youth.
And certainly, the Channelview and Massachusetts cases were extreme, which is one reason they garnered attention from all around the world. Yet, paradoxically those instances also hit a bit too close to home; as parents, we saw a bit of ourselves in those overly zealous examples.
No one who has ever had children has not, at some point, wished their child were more like them, or that they hadn't taken on our less than stellar attributes. But where is the line that separates normal concern for the well being of our children and obsessive, controlling behavior that attempts to make our children into something they're not?
Nearly two years ago, the journal Fertility and Sterility reported on the growing number of parents who are trying to create designer children. In extreme cases, some parents are choosing to make sure their children inherit their own genetic defects, such as dwarfism and deafness. Again, these cases are extreme.
And while most of us parent in the middle of the continuum, subtly, we may be sending messages to our children that make them think we don't accept them as they are, that we are disappointed if they do not think like we do. What are the repercussions to this kind of behavior?
SELF ESTEEM
Certainly, a child's self esteem suffers when they feel that they are not living up to a parent's excessively high expectations. The quiet, intellectual child of an outgoing cheerleader mom gets the feeling that because she doesn't care about going to parties and prefers reading to other, more social activities any day of the week, she has disappointed her mother. Yet, try as she might, she cannot change who she is, any more than her own mother can.
LACK OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Focusing on the behavior of a child all of the time gives him the idea that what he does is more important than who he is. William J., an executive consultant, says that the only time his parents paid any attention to him was when he outshone his other siblings by doing chores more "perfectly" than they did. Hence, he said, "Although I appear to be quite confident, I'll admit that my ego is built around what I accomplish. I wish it weren't that way; I'd like to be able to relax and simply enjoy life, but I can't do that. I have to push myself to perform in order to justify my existence [in my own mind]."
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Another area in which it's easy to try to compare our children to ourselves is that of religious faith. It's certainly understandable for parents to want to instill in their children right behavior and their own particular belief system. Yet, it's easy to forget that children cannot be forced to have the same level of faith and maturity that an adult does. Children must grow "into" the depth of maturity that their parents have, in their own time. Encouraging a child to have faith is one thing; demanding they adhere to an overly harsh standard, or to try "forcing" a child to have the level of faith the parent has is quite another.
Take for example, the sad story of Justin T. Because of his quiet nature and non-descript appearance, it was easy for Justin to merely blend into the background of his local high school. He was pleasant enough, and his grades were above average. His appearance was neat, by adolescent standards, anyway.
Yet underneath Justin's placid exterior lurked something inside his personality that was going terribly wrong. The problem with Justin's outward persona is that it masked the turmoil, the anger seething below the surface of his mild manner and pimply grin.
One Sunday afternoon, when Justin was 15 years old, the magma that had grown out of his inwardly turned anger broke thru the surface and wreaked horrific terror, grief, and devastation.
Justin's father was "old school" when it came to Sundays; he considered them the sacred. Justin had what most would consider a reasonable request for a fifteen year old. He wanted to go crossbow hunting after they returned home from church. His parents told him unequivocally that his proposed outing was out of the question.
There were murmurings throughout the community that the rigidity with which Justin's parents ruled their home went beyond what was typical, or reasonable. Whether this was true or not is mute. What ultimately mattered is that Justin himself believed he was regularly mistreated, that he could not be himself.
Because of this, and perhaps for reasons unbeknownst to everyone with the possible exception of Justin himself, this seemingly predictable denial of his wishes turned, for Justin, into the mother of all personal affronts, unleashing anger unrivaled by that of the most hardened of criminals.
He shot and killed his father, then attempted to kill his mother before fleeing in the family vehicle. The judge in this case considered the mitigating circumstances surrounding Justin's crime, and as a result, did not sentence him as harshly as he could have.
"I LIKE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE."
The bottom line is that children will be who they were intended to be, and to try an "alter" their personality, or mold them into our clones only backfires. Mr. Rogers said it best: "I like you as you are. I think you turned out nicely. I like you as you are, exactly and precisely."