A five-year-old boy sits at a picnic table, wailing. A Junior Ranger workbook lies in front of him, open to an I Spy activity. One animal is circled, then crossed-out, then circled again. Through tears, he keeps repeating, “I can’t erase it!”
Almost 30 years earlier, a toddler girl sat on the floor, struggling to shove a block into the wrong hole in a shape sorter. Fed up with the whole thing, she chucked it across the room.
The first was my son on a camping trip a few weekends ago. The second was me as a kid. I don’t remember it happening, but my mom has told the shape sorter story over and over again. The frustrated apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
For decades, I thought I was a perfectionist. After all, I had exceedingly high expectations of myself and others. But I didn’t experience the lack of self-confidence and fear that most perfectionists – especially other women – did. In fact, I was pretty okay with failing, depending on the situation.
Instead, the longer I’ve been a mom, the more I’ve realized that my frustrations have little to do with being perfect. They’re all about my expectations and how they become an immovable object in my mind. I know what life is ”supposed” to be like, regardless of whether that’s based on any realistic truth. Like anything that happens when a unstoppable force meets an immovable object, it ain’t pretty when real life collides with my expectations. And in parenting, it always collides. Parenting is far too messy and complicated to fit in my neat little boxes.
Here is a minor sampling of things so far that haven’t met my expectations: sleep routines (“put them down drowsy” hahaha), nursing (eventually supplemented), vacations (kids will get tired and cranky), craftiness (homemade Halloween costumes; yes, homemade anything else, no), potty training (the worst), bedtime routines (also the worst), and the cleanliness of our house (just, no). Those unmet expectations have caused tears, yelling, and stamping of feet – mostly from me. Sometimes, they even overshadow the joy of the situation.
Perhaps worst of all, those expectations have led to blame and shame. As Anne Lamott says, “Expectations are resentments under construction.” When something doesn’t go according to plan, we want someone to point to. According to sociologist Brene Brown, for many of us, it’s better to blame anyone – even ourselves – for problems rather than accept that stuff just happens sometimes. I certainly know that’s true in my own life. Every time a parenting tactic doesn’t work, I place the blame on my husband or think “I must have done something wrong.” But so often, it’s my expectations, not mine or anyone else’s actions, that are the mismatch.
Thankfully, over the course of my kids’ lives, I’ve learned to tamp down this tendency. I try to ignore parenting advice that claims to always work, even if the anxieties tease the back of my mind later. I take for granted that certain complications will emerge, like having to stop to go to the bathroom on long road trips or knowing that missed naps will have consequences. In many cases, I just try not to have expectations at all. Although I prepare for what may happen, I don’t put any faith in those predictions.
But while I’m getting more flexible, I see these same destructive tendencies in my older son. My younger son seems to have inherited my husband’s mental flexibility, but my older son has elaborate ideas of how things “should” be. From made-up games to bedtime routines, there’s his way and there’s the wrong way.
These set-in-stone rules keep him from enjoying what is instead of what he thinks should be. In the case of the Junior Ranger book, he had filled out the rest of it perfectly well. But that one x that he couldn’t erase nagged at his mind. It was exasterbated by the lack of sleep and excitement of camping, but still rooted in those presumptions of how the world should be.
This mindset also makes it tough to get along with others. When I was a kid and other kids didn’t play “right,” I’d get upset. I see him doing the same thing now. After all, no one ever fully agrees on how to play pretend or a playground game. It’s a series of negotiations and small shifts from everyone involved. But that’s impossible if one person refuses to move.
Watching him at these times, I wish I could download my experiences and wisdom straight into his brain. “If only he’d listen to me!” I think. Another expectation, of course!
But I know he can’t. Like all of our children, he has to learn these lessons for himself, the hard way. He has to work through these challenges and issues, gaining the emotional resilience along the way. It’s all part of growing up.
In the end, the Junior Ranger packet worked out. As we packed up the tent, he calmed down. Driving to the visitors’ center, he turned it in with pride. As he repeated the Junior Ranger pledge after the Park Ranger, he jumped up and down with each word. Somewhere along the way, I hope he remembers that those Xs don’t mean all that much after all.
For more on dealing with the challenges of parenting, check out What Happened When I Broke a Promise to My Kid.
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