One evening, I was listening to the song Que Sera, Sera. Feeling overcome with childhood nostalgia and because I didn’t feel ready to endure this, I chose a reading that would sneak me into another area. Ha, Ha, and Aha. I found an anecdote there.
Two mothers are talking as they watch their children play.
– How old are your children? one of the mothers asks.
– The lawyer is three, and the doctor is five.
My child
I thought then about the couple who has been coming to therapy for a few months. Two young people who are expecting the birth of their first child. I encouraged them to write a letter about what they feel and what they hope for, which they should keep and read from time to time, over the years.
Their letters were very touching. At the end of the session, the father-to-be said: “My child will study economics. That will fulfill him professionally better than anything else.”
Hence the idea of this article. And the title Que Sera, Sera couldn’t be more appropriate.
Child of parent or parent of child?
I increasingly encounter children who endure, quite literally, hours of tennis, piano, or violin lessons, and endless tutoring. Often, the source lies in the unfulfilled desires of parents regarding their own lives. This is why parents insist on making their children successful individuals who can compensate for their own shattered dreams.
It is a fact that has been confirmed for a long time and established in theory: a parent who strongly identifies with their own child’s image, ignoring that child’s individuality, is more likely to develop such a parenting model.
We are talking about parents who see their children as extensions of themselves, rather than as distinct individuals with their own hopes and talents.
How can you check if you exhibit such behavior?
Think about whether you insistently urge your children to pursue a dream that isn’t theirs, offering them a bookish perspective on the potential benefits they will gain over time.
Consider whether you’ve noticed that they have no passion for the imposed activities.
Reflect on whether you ignore these signals, hoping that desire will come with time.
In this way, parents derive a form of satisfaction and a sense of their parental role by indirectly addressing their own unfulfilled ambitions.
Your success is my success
But what happens when these kids have the expected success? This success turns into the shelter of the parent who cancels any initiative for his own life. It is dedicated exclusively to the child’s success. The only reasons for pride and fulfillment come from there. They speak, think, and live only through the image of this success.
A study, published in 2013 in the journal Public Library of Science ONE, was conducted at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
65 parents who had children between the ages of 8 and 15 were selected. The researchers asked them to complete a test to measure how much they perceive their child as a part of themselves.
The participants were then divided into two groups. Members of the first group were asked to write down two of their ambitions that they had failed to achieve. The list included various “dreams”. From writing a novel to developing a highly successful business or dreaming of becoming a professional tennis player.
Parents in the second group were simply asked to reflect on a person they knew who not achieved their professional and life dreams.
And the conclusion is?
The conclusion of the study and its co-author, Professor Dr. Brad Bushman, from Ohio University, was that parents who reflected on their lost dreams were more likely to push their children to fulfill them.
In contrast, parents who reflected on other people’s failed ambitions expressed the option for their children to follow their path, unconstrained by ambitions external to their will.
The researchers pointed out that the parents who were in the first group, considered their child as a part of themselves, being much more likely to see in their son or daughter the fulfillment of their dreams. The results suggested that parents who strongly associate their children’s image with their image at the same age are the ones who transfer their dreams onto their children.
They live their lives vicariously through their children
The researchers warned of the potential dangers of this approach, one of which is the difficulty of these children, reaching the age of adulthood, to establish their autonomy, to think and to act according their will.
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here’s what she said to me.
Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.
