The Trouble with Expectations

When my children were preschool age, I was overwhelmed more often than I care to admit!  Each day demanded lots of energy, flexibility and creativity.  On most days, I could hit two out of the three above.  But the insidious culprit that often stole my joy and peace was an invisible, powerful force called expectations.

Expectations are preconceived ideas about how something should or will happen.  When I visit the dentist, I expect some discomfort and I’m usually right. When I schedule a hair appointment, I expect Karin to be there and she usually is. 

Expectations can be realistic or unrealistic.  It is realistic to expect Karin and the dentist to be there.  If I knew Karin always ran late, I would either adjust my expectations or go somewhere else! 

Unrealistic expectations can be more troublesome.  I still remember going to the orthodontist at age 16, expecting this to be the long-awaited day he would remove my braces. I was sorely disappointed when they had to be on another 4 weeks.  No, I was spitting mad! When I got married, I expected my husband to wash all the family cars like my Dad did.  This too has proven to be an unrealistic expectation!

Whether our expectations are realistic or unrealistic, we experience disequilibrium when they go unmet.  Disequilibrium is a feeling of discomfort that can range from no big deal to mildly annoyed to full blown anger and frustration.  Our response to the disequilibrium depends on our personality, maturity and how invested we are in that expectation.

As a 30-something, later-married, post-professional career, new-stay-at-home mom, I was doomed to have high expectations from the start.  Over the years of waiting to be a parent, I’d developed a mental composite of the ideal parent I wanted to be.

To make matters worse, I’d been working with college students, a mostly babyless crowd for the past years.  I had way too much theory and way too little experience.  It was a perfect recipe for disequilibrium.  And boy, did it come when I finally had my own real baby in my arms.

Here was my new-mom list:
I expected to be able to nurse effortlessly.
I expected to get sleep.
I expected to have a magic touch when he cried.
I expected to be calm and confident all of the time.
I didn’t expect to feel lonely.
I didn’t expect to feel so afraid to make a mistake.
I didn’t expect to feel so much pressure to make his life wonderful.

I suspect these might sound familiar to a few of you.

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who encourages you to write down your parenting expectations before you read the rest of the story tomorrow.