<p>Wow, that would make me sad if my parents were DISAPPOINTED in my chosen career after who knows how long. I guess to me, if folks make choices for THEIR career and it works for them, I’d try to be supportive even if it might not be the choice I would have made under similar circumstances. I am very fortunate that my folks have been surprised about the career choices I have made all along the way, but have been supportive nonetheless. </p>
<p>We have been supportive of the choices our kids make as well. We know that some of the choices D has made may make her a “starving artist” or similar, but have always encouraged her & S to “pursue their dreams.” </p>
<p>H & I have been blessed to always be able to get jobs that pay us for doing what we enjoy, even tho for me my career has changed dramatically over the years. We want the same for our kids, even tho we have no clear idea where D’s path may lead.</p>
<p>As they say,
Our children are not our children
They are the sons & daughters of life’s longing for itself
(or something to that effect)</p>
<p>If you love something,
Set it free
If it returns,
It was meant to be.</p>
<p>We are enjoying watching and encouraging our kids as they move forward toward futures that engage and excite them. Their choices are based on their passions and preferences, not ours. So far, we have not felt we are in any position to be disappointed in THEIR dreams.</p>
<p>My only disappointments would be in poor choices in terms of health and safety or slamming doors/burning bridges. Neither have gone those routes and I’m glad. They both realize that as my D’s instructors say, you may meet folks in the profession GOING UP AND COMING DOWN; be nice to everyone!</p>
<p>I think that your reaction here is unusual. In a similar situation, many relationships would suffer.</p>
<p>My mother was very disappointed in my decision to downsize my career and switch to freelance work while I was raising children. Like you, I did what I wanted, but our relationship did suffer. Eventually, the only way we could maintain a pleasant relationship was to agree that we would stop talking about this topic. </p>
<p>In my extended family, I know of two situations where a parent expressing disappointment with a child’s choice led to a prolonged break in the relationship between them. One involved a young woman who divorced and remarried (contrary to the teachings of her family’s religion), and the other involved a young man whose father disapproved of his choice of how to spend a substantial amount of money that he had inherited. In one instance, the breach lasted for decades. In the other case, it was permanent – the child never spoke to the parent again for the rest of the parent’s lifetime.</p>
<p>So there are risks to expressing your disappointment in your child’s choices.</p>
<p>I am very surprised, Marian. I do not know of one Indian around me who would break off relationships with their parents. It is absolutely unheard of in India to act such a way! Of course, as you may know, in India often the kids stay with their parents even after they are married and have kids. It is one big family. Families have differences in opinion. That’s completely natural. One doesn’t break off relationships because of that.</p>
<p>But regardless of the risks, you owe it to your kids to give them your honest, unvarnished opinion. Otherwise you are just enabling them. That does them no favor.</p>
<p>Look, it’s not like I like the situation either. I wish I could follow my parents’ wishes and make them happy, as I know that they are quite sad about my career choices. I can’t, however. That would make me sad, and that does no one any good. I do understand where they are coming from, and I respect that. But I can’t change because of that. You can’t live for others, you have to live for yourself. </p>
<p>That’s why I think everyone should do what they want to do, and everyone should also feel free to express their honest opinions, and no one should feel hurt because they don’t like that opinion. It’s just a difference in opinion. Absorb the facts in it, analyze it, then do what you think is the right thing to do. Leave emotions aside. That way there is far less conflict in the world.</p>
<p>I think there would be far less conflict in the world if people learned to recognize when sharing their honest opinions about the actions of other adults is unnecessary. If I’m disappointed in something my adult children freely choose, it’s my problem, not theirs. They’re not obligated not to disappoint me. I’m not obligated to tell them if they do.</p>
<p>“Enabling” is a concept that is usually used in contexts like alcoholism or abusive relationships, but we have agreed not to include these kinds of safety-related choices in this discussion.</p>
<p>For other choices, I don’t think that the concept of “enabling” applies. The concept of “butting into other people’s business” may be more relevant.</p>
<p>But I am not Indian. It is possible that in the Indian context, great frankness between family members is possible and expected because the family ties are so strong that they are not put at risk by disagreements. </p>
<p>But this is not necessarily true in other cultures. In many U.S. subcultures, a parent who is strongly critical of choices a child makes that are not obviously unhealthy/unsafe may be risking his/her relationship with that child – perhaps forever.</p>
<p>With all due respect, this isn’t India, and the posters here are from a variety of backgrounds. If a person comes from a culture where kids would never dare break off a relationship with their parents no matter what the parent said, then there is no risk for the parent to be as harsh, critical, derogatory, opinionated, etc about the childrens’ choices as they want or feel the need to be. Of course the impact that such comments might have on the child’s self esteem must be considered, even if the child doesn’t share their feelings with their parent. </p>
<p>This is perhaps tangential, but I was discussing with one of my s’s this morning the suicide of the former Yankee pitcher, Hideki Irabu, at the age of 42. One can only hope he didn’t feel he was a disappointment to his family.</p>
<p>Perhaps you may also want to consider that even though you and your parents clearly identify as Indian, your child’s identification with that culture may not be as strong. </p>
<p>There are very few schools in this country where there are enough Indian students so that an Indian child would have only Indian friends. Chances are, the Indian child has made friends with kids from other cultures. Some Indian kids spend most of their time with a peer group that includes kids from several different heritages.</p>
<p>If your child has picked up some non-Indian attitudes from friends who come from other cultures, his/her reaction to your frankly expressed disappointment might be different from what you would predict.</p>
<p>It must be very confusing to get conflicting messages from a parent. If the message a child is given is to do/be the best, do better, try harder etc, but is then given critical feedback and the message that they are a disappointment, that can be seen as emotional abuse.</p>
<p>OK, health & safety aside then…
I would never tell my kids they were a disappointment, that’s too personal and long-lasting. I would, however tell them in an instant if I was disappointed in specific choices or outcomes, and have done so to some degree at this point. It’s more of a “watch out” kind of thing, like if DS2 picks a friend that I’m a little wary of, it is still his choice and he can then enter it with a cautious eye. This happens rarely, but again we are never afraid to let them know exactly what we are thinking.
DS1, who is 19, is obviously old enough to make his own decisions, we do discuss things at length as we always have, but both he and we are well aware that his choices = his consequences. He is not concerned with disappointing us nor are we concerned with letting him down. Have to realize everyone makes mistakes and there is no rule book on how all things should be done. That said we’re all fortunate that none of us are even slightly prone to rash decisions but rather tend to overthink everything. I cannot imagine, however, either of us making a decision that would cause us to break off the relationship.</p>
<p>How do I handle disappointment?
I’ve found it best to approach it warily and, only when absolutely necessary, touch it most gingerly.
If you stroke it, it just gets too demanding and wants too much attention.</p>
<p>(I also agree with frazzled1 in post number 25.)</p>
<p>"But regardless of the risks, you owe it to your kids to give them your honest, unvarnished opinion. "
Why? Its their life! If they are independent, as in no longer living with their parents[ which is strongly encouraged in this countries culture as soon as young adults are capable], and they dont’ want listen to their parents, then they won’t listen. What good is nagging your grown adult child about how they have “disappointed” you, if its not going to change anything for the better, either with their lives, or with their relationship with you?<br>
Besides, most [ adult] children are usually not totally “clueless” about how their parents might react to decisions they make. I don’t think letting them know your “disappointment”, just so you get it off your chest, does any good, short term or long term. It may feel “good” to the parent, to reassert their “power” over the child, but it belittles the [adult] child and once again puts them in an supplicant position in the child - parent dynamic.
IN this country , adult children are not thought of as puppets, someone whose actions parents try to control well beyond childhood, but rather, they are encouraged to cut the strings, and not be dependent on their parents approval through out their lives.</p>
<p>Well said, Menloparkmom. One doesn’t “owe it” to their adult child to express criticism or disappointment, especially since the safety/health issues were removed from the discussion. This hads nothing to do with “enabling”, as was explained above. Sometimes, especially when it comes to diplomacy and relationship communication, less is more.</p>
<p>I’m 17, and I just thought I should give my perspective. I completely agree with menloparkmom. </p>
<p>I aspire to be a Special Education teacher. I’ve read countless threads about parents openly discussing their disdain, disappointment, disapproval, etc over their children wanting to be teachers. It does not help the child AT ALL to express your personal feelings if it’s just because that’s not how you would run your life. As the children, we don’t express our disappointment because our parents decided to do X, Y, and Z with their lives. I feel expressing your disappointment is just a way to emphasize your control and superiority, even if you don’t mean it that way. Furthermore, it just makes the child’s decision and life more difficult because every child, whether they want to admit it or not, wants to make his parent proud. Knowing that making an acceptable decision that will make him happy will forever leave his parents disappointed is difficult. It’s also difficult because no child wants to feel that by choosing his success and/or happiness he chose his parents’ misery.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if the parents were to constructively have a discussion with their children, I think that would be different. Openly expressing disappointment does nothing but diminish your child’s self esteem, makes your child feel insecure, and diminishes your relationship–even if your child doesn’t say it out loud. If you honestly feel that you have a valid reason to address your child about his decision, it needs to be done in a constructive way. Instead of saying, “I’m disappointed in your decision.” or “I don’t like what you did.” try having an open an honest discussion to understand your child’s point of view and then have a conversation without dismissing your child. Keep in mind that your child is not and will never be a clone of you and will never be what you imagined him to be when you held him for the first time in your arms.</p>
<p>The approach I take with my son is to try and get him to discuss the pros and cons of his decision by simply asking him questions…no judgements. Sometimes, it will make him think twice, sometimes not but at the end of the day we all have the right to decide our own course in life. I have learned from many years of watching siblings, friends, co-workers and even my spouse, that people are going to do what they want to do no matter how much you point out the error of their ways. It’s usually better to keep quiet and be kind.</p>
<p>grammargirl94 - you will make an awesome teacher someday!</p>
<p>That being said, one of the best teachers that either of my kids ever had in grade school gets huge credit for some of my kids’ successes. D1 had her for grades 3 & 4. As parents of third graders, she emphasized very strongly to the parents at the first Open House, to not rescue your child and to let them make mistakes (now, I know… we’re only talking about very young children). The kids she had in this class were extremely bright, but I will be the first to attest that extremely bright doesn’t always = organized and responsible. D1 was organized and responsible and had a pretty flawless, effortless pre-college educational experience (as well as college). D2 is not quite so organized, but I still parented her with the same expectations. While she also had a fairly flawless pre-college educational experience, she also did not hesitate to speak her mind when a teacher was wrong, so there was a little more friction. </p>
<p>Would I have liked D2 to have had the same organizational skills and drive to be more responsible as D1 did? Yes! Was it disappointing sometimes? Yes. But she created her own consequences, so I did not really feel the need to tell her how disappointed I was. If anything, I was often amazed when she could pick up on my disappointment, without my having said any words to her. I think most kids know when you’re disappointed in them, whether you say something to them or not. </p>
<p>As a parent, I feel my job is too empower my kids to be internally motivated by whatever their passions and strengths are and to encourage it however I can. How can I know what they internally experience??? I can’t, so I have to trust that they know their own path best. So as long as they are following their own path, why would I be disappointed in their life choices?</p>
<p>GrammarGirl94, you’re on your way to being an outstanding teacher. Your post above was extremely well-stated and articulate. The kids you teach will learn so much from you. Teaching is one of the MOST important professions in the world. You are shaping the minds of our future leaders. Thanks to all the teachers (including the many friends & family members who have gone into this crucial and venerable profession).</p>