Are you who your parents think/thought you would/should become?

Oh, good grief, no. If I was was what they expected, I’d still be married and would have popped out a couple of kids by now.

Luckily, we have finally reached a point in my life (at 50) that they accept me as I am. Mostly.

I never managed to figure out exactly what they wanted or expected of me. Whatever I attempted was wrong, so I eventually gave up trying.

Pfffffft hahahahaha no!

My Dad died when I was 4 and my Mom never said a word to me about my future. She didn’t seem to care. I’m no great success story but I have managed to achieve a moderately high level of success on my own. I learned early that no one cares about my future but me.

No. Nothing I do is good enough for them, and they lost all hope when I came out of the closet. It’s a strange relationship.

No. My father was from a generation where if women worked, it wasn’t as a career. I was offered very limited career options when I left school. I think he’d be shocked, but proud, of where I’ve ended up. My brothers were always the ones who were pushed to achieve.

Honestly, I don’t think my parents expected anything of me, because I don’t think they ever thought that far ahead. Never even talked about going to college or anything. My sister and I had to figure out how to enroll – much later than we would have liked, on our own. My dad did tell me at a couple of points, during my teens, that he thought I was going to be a complete failure. Which I could never figure out, because I hadn’t done anything that should have made him feel that way. I wasn’t typical when it came to doing things like having sex, drinking, or doing drugs. I was more responsible in general than all of my peers. shrug Ridiculous assumptions coming from an alcoholic.

I’ve come a long way in my thinking and sometimes I like to pretend that I got over everything my parents put me through. Unfortunately, I don’t quite think I’m there yet in reality.

My dad thinks I’ve fallen short of what I could or should be. That’s been true my whole life. He didn’t deliver the message in a way that felt like pressure, it was more like disappointment, or it made me question myself. My mom
I don’t think thought about it too much.

It’s the strangest thing, and really peculiar, but after my dad died, and while I was still in school my mother acquired this fixation on my becoming a ranger with the Park Service. Neither of my parents had ever expressed the slightest intention of directing me toward any career or profession, and I had assumed they would both be more than happy with the fact that I managed to avoid an arrest record. I’d grown up camping and spending time in the woods, but the one great positive to all of those summer camps and years of scouting was the certain recognition by my mid teens that I was not inclined to sleeping on the ground nor tempting the endless treacheries and snares befalling those naively seduced by Ma Nature. Fortunately for all involved, the obsession passed in a few weeks. I think it was my suggestion that the remedy to constantly having to weed the garden and mow the lawn involved the simple application of a few cubic yards of concrete.

Nope. Not even remotely. My Dad, however, did express the understanding that me being happy and fulfilled in my life was most important, even if he felt I wasn’t living up to my full potential. When he died, he had recently told me that he was proud of the person I had become.

My mother, as recently as February, let me know that I was a disappointment, and that she believed a lot of my decisions and actions were solely for the purpose of embarrassing her.
We no longer have a relationship, and I am sleeping better at night.

Yes and no. They trained me to be what they expected: a hard-working person, studying at a notable college, with enough common sense and no past trouble with anyone.

But they fail (and will never succeed) to turn me into a completely dull person who only dare do what everyone does. I know they want to protect me in the comfort zome, but they just can’t realize that life isn’t just about that.

For girls born when I was, the professional choices were teacher, nurse, or secretary.

My father was certain that I’d become a teacher. Well, I don’t like children, and I have the sort of brain that’s very inwardly-focused. I’m analytical and enjoy solving problems on my own, but I’m terrible at explaining things to other people.

My mother thought I’d be a housewife, because I love everything domestic and enjoy structuring my own time. That’s really all I ever wanted to be – a homemaker. By the time I reached adulthood, however, the job was fading away, and women were expected to work outside the home. That was unfortunate; feminism was supposed to have been about choices – women could no longer be expected to become traditional wives and nothing else, but then the decision was taken away from them.

My parents were very clear as I was growing up that they would be happy with whatever profession made me happy. I always wanted to be a writer and my dad, who grew up in NYC and had a brother who worked as a columnist for the New York Times, encouraged me move there to attend college. I did so (with my mother’s blessing, as well) and wound up working for one of the Times’ competitors, and then later working for ad agencies as a writer. Both parents continued to be proud of my writing career until their deaths.

I think my parents had low expectations. They were always amazed at any achievement.

My mom always wanted me to do what I can with my music, and as an adult, if I was happy doing what I wanted, that was good for her.

My dad always told me to do my best.

Hahahahaha! They’re so disappointed in me. So many concerned talks about The Direction of My Life and Why I Don’t Just Get a Job with Health Insurance.

@Haleth I got the “Why don’t you get a real job…” talk several times during my music career!

They expected all of us kids in the family to do better than they did.
To them in our generation we had much more stability than what they came from.
( World wars,Depression era,families split,financial worries etc)
Each generation is built upon the sufferrings of the earlyier generation and thier triumphs.