I've been recently reflecting on how much of our lives are controlled by expectations. As adults we are expected to behave within certain boundaries in our work, by our families and friends, in our day to day dealings with others. In many cases the expectations are clear and we can choose to meet them or not. For example, I am expected to be at work by a certain time and work a cetain number of hours per week. If I don't meet these expectations there will be consequences.
Sometimes we may be expected to do something against our better judgement and then we must choose how to respond. However, there is more probability of upset and friction when expectations exist that we are unaware of. This is as true for personal relationships as it is in business when a sales representative promises the earth to get the sale, leaving the supplier struggling to meet the customer' hight expectations. Being aware expectations of us gives us some room to try and mange them. A good example is telling my four year old how I expect her to behave before we arrive somewhere. She then has an opportunity to ask questions and clarify things in her own mind, which generally makes trips easier and heads off some potential problems. Oh how I wish it was this was this easy in some adult relationships!
Many of our expectations come from our upbringing, honed by our experiences. I think in life I have in general lowered my expectations in many areas as I've got older. Perhaps this could be seen as becoming more tolerant, or maybe it is a way to limit disappointment. I heard a not particularly catchy saying once that 'past behaviour is a predictor of future behaviour'. I suppose this goes with the saying that a leopard never changes his spots. Therefore, if my husband forgets my birthday or Mother's Day and I am expecting it, I am not particularly upset. If he remembers then he has exceeded my expectations and it is a nice surprise. In the beginning I would get upset at things like this, but a line from a young American wife and mother I saw on a TV programme once called something like 'Submissive Wives' (and no, I don't think I quite fit that description in general), has stuck with me - 'I am grateful to have my husband even if he does leave his dirty socks on the floor'.
As parents we have a responsibility to teach our children what are reasonable and right expectations in life, but we must be careful to differentiate between expectations and hopes. A friend mentioned to me recently that her normally very active and physical child wouldn't participate in sports day. It took me back to my first sports day at school when I remember being tearful and not wanting to enter any races. I was known as being quite sporty and I didn't know how I would handle the comments if I didn't win. As my daughter is starting to think about going to school it has reminded me that I need to help her develop the emotional tools to handle failure and rejection so that when she experiences them she is able to pick herself up, put them in perpective, learn from them and not loose any of her self-worth. Of course there is also a risk of setting expectations too low, but hopefully with practise and experience we get better at it. On the occasions we get expectation levels wrong, we can still try and wrap our children in the safety blanket of love and keep hoping.
Thankfully it is very rarely that I have found myself in a situation where I have had to rely on hope and prayer alone. One that springs to mind is when a friend of ours was being held hostage in Iraq. After many weeks someone suggested that it would be better for his wife if she at least knew if he was dead. She had said separately that whilst there was no news there was still hope. He did make it home alive, perhaps not in the manner that had been hoped, but in this case hope was rewarded.
I won't always live up to my daughters' expectations, and they won't to mine, but I will live in hope that expectations won't get in the way of their hopes and dreams, and many of their dreams will become realities.
