For a few months in 2009 I ran a blog that updated family on the status of our triplets. I also sprinkled in some articles that talked about other interests. As I am now making You, Simplified my primary blog, I will be porting over a few posts from the old site. This particular one was by far the most popular on the old site. I hope you enjoy…
On May 28th, 2009 my wife and I welcomed our triplets into this world. My daughter, Bella Marie (born 1lbs 14oz) was followed shortly thereafter by my son, Owen Charles (1lb 14oz) and then my youngest, Noah Anthony (2lbs 4oz). They were preemies, born just shy of 27 weeks and our doctors cautioned us to not let our expectations get the best of us. There would be ups and downs, and no guarantees of survival for any of them, they told us.
But as new parents, full of hope and love, we nevertheless celebrated those moments when Bella opened her eyes for the first time, when Owen started feeding on breast-milk, when Noah started breathing on his own for a few hours a day, and when we were finally able to hold them, albeit briefly, in our arms. These seemingly small milestones are truly life miracles that I will always cherish.
It got me thinking, particularly after we reached their one month birthday in late June and they were not just surviving but thriving, that as parents, we expect a lot out of our children. We love them and we realize that, born as a blank slate, the potential for them is endless. I want to be as clear as possible about my expectations for them, while also leaving the guidelines open-ended for them to interpret and apply. So I began this organic, evolving manifesto that I hope they will someday read and take to heart. Without further ado, this is my Great Expectations Manifesto for my children:
1. I expect you to seek authentic happiness – You will not be happy every moment of your life. You may even be afflicted with clinical depression or experience such a wave of tragedies that you cannot see the surface for open air. Please know that there are countless stories of people who have succeeded despite enormous obstacles. Seek this inspiration and never lose hope.
2. I expect you to make a lifetime habit of learning – I don’t expect you to go to college or get an advanced degree, unless you want to (but you will graduate high school!). I do expect you to learn everything you can about the subjects that interest you and to treat learning as a thirst that can never be fully quenched.
3. I expect you to worship God (whichever one you choose) and worship nature – Don’t worship “stuff” and don’t worship the almighty dollar. Make it a daily habit to express gratitude to the Infinite for the relationships and circumstances in your life. Even when it may seem impossible to find something in your life to be grateful for, it’s then that this practice is most important.
4. I expect you to live within your means – Mom and Dad love you and we would give our lives for you but once you are out of school, we will not finance your lifestyle. Living within your means is the surest way to bypass many of life’s unnecessary stresses. Failing to do so will bring you hardship and misery.
5. I expect you to try your best at whatever you set your interest on – I don’t expect you to be the best at everything, but you will find that when you give your best, consistently, you will become great at whatever endeavor you apply this to.
6. I expect you to be responsible in your love relationships – I don’t expect you to be straight, gay or bi. I will love you no matter what. You need to be safe and respect yourself, your body, and your partner. Your heart will be broken, likely more than once. Know that you are a good and worthy person and that someday you will find the love that will make it all worthwhile.
7. I expect you to design your own lifestyle, irrespective of what your friends and peers are doing. The worst thing you can do is try to compare yourself with others. Your only means of comparison should be with yourself, and your vision for how you want to live. Use your mind’s eye, keep a journal, make a Vision board, whatever resonates with you to help create the blueprint of the life you want to live.
8. I expect you to share your gifts – You should always seek to provide more value than you take from the world. You owe the world to share your special talents, your passions, and when you do, you will find happiness in the joy that you bring others.
9. I expect you to keep fit – I don’t expect you to be a champion athlete unless that’s your passion. I expect that you develop the strength, speed, agility, and endurance to preserve your health, protect your family and escape danger, if necessary. By practicing exercises like Yoga, uphill sprints, pushups, pullups and hindu squats you learn to master your bodyweight for any life situation that requires a physical response.
10. I expect you to be thoughtful and thankful for the food that you eat – Practice gratitude for the food on your plate, and how it traveled to you, via the farmers who cultivated it, the elements of nature that nourished it, the workers who brought it to you or, if you are a meat-eater, the animal that gave its life to you. Eat slowly and mindfully, chew thoroughly and you will increase your chances for good health.
11. I expect that you understand that your parents love you very much and, while what we do may not always make sense, our primary goal is to nurture you, to help develop your gifts and to provide safety for you, as best as we can.
12. I expect you to respect your possessions – Do not hoard. If you are not actively using or loving a thing in your possession, pass it on to someone who will. The less “stuff” you have the more you can actively enjoy the things you do have, the relationships that are important to you, and the activities that excite you. The less stuff you have, the less time you have to spend cleaning or maintaining it and the less storage you need to contain it.
13. I expect you to pursue a passion, not chase a paycheck – For our part, we will not push you toward a specific trade or profession. It’s important to support yourself and your family, but understand that there are few people in the world who have found true happiness by chasing a paycheck. If they have, it was by accident. If you find that you’re happy in cubicle life, then you have our support. If you find your interests lie in the arts or in business, we will support your decision. Find your passion first, share it with the World and you will learn to make a comfortable living from it.
14. Respect Others – This is the Golden Rule. In reality, we are all one, and as such, when you lash out in anger, or talk badly about someone, you are also hurting yourself. No good comes from spreading negative energy.
15. I expect you to travel the world – To experience different cultures and learn to appreciate the many different customs and lifestyles of people around the world. For our part, we will endeavor to take you on various trips, as a family, but you should make this a life-long pursuit.
16. I expect you to respect your time – Do not let the things in life that are important be at the mercy of the unimportant. Don’t fill your days with activities that don’t support your passion. You will be doing a disservice to yourself and others if you let tasks creep into your life that take away from you sharing your gifts and living the best life possible. Use the 80/20 rule to determine the tasks that will provide the most value, write a couple of them down every day, and make sure you do them above anything else.
17. I expect you to not be afraid to make mistakes – You won’t learn everything from study alone. You must experience. Know that, at times you will fail, sometimes spectacularly, in many of the things you do. The important thing is to try, even if you fail, and you will at least have learned something that can help guide your next steps.
18. I expect you to persevere – As a corollary to the guideline immediately above. Whether you have a natural talent for a specific task or you don’t, your greatest tool for success in life will be your level of perseverance. This doesn’t mean repeatedly banging your head against the wall. Sometimes you’ll need to take a step back so that you can make a running start. Take heart that Thomas Edison failed nearly 10,000 times in creating the incandescent light bulb, that the Williams sisters have lost many more Tennis tournaments than they have won, or that Michael Jordan failed to sink the last-second, winning shot dozens of times when called upon in his Hall of Fame career.
19. I expect that you will learn to balance preparing for the future with living for today – Start young saving and preparing for retirement, and put it on auto-pilot wherever possible. Once you remove many of the worries of the future, you can truly enjoy each moment in the present.
20. I expect that, when Mommy and I leave this world, that you won’t feel burdened by what we leave behind. We’ll do our best to lighten our footprint and not leave you overwhelmed, dealing with our stuff. Don’t fight with one another for what we leave behind. Understand that we are a family and our love is infinite. There is no trinket or material possession that can accurately reflect that. We won’t be upset if you decide to throw out or donate all or most of it. Your experiences with us will still be there and those moments can’t be taken from you.
21. Finally, I expect that you pass along your own life lessons to others – Whether you elect to have a family or not is up to you. Pass your lessons along to your children if you have them. If you don’t, pass them along to extended family, your friends, and even to complete strangers.
While this list is far from complete, I hope to add to it throughout my parenting years as my own experiences shape my reality. I think it’s a great exercise to focus on what is most important to us and what we would like to teach our children. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we will fail at providing the exact words or actions that get the appropriate lesson across. Having designed such a list ahead of time may help guide you and your children in these situations.
I’m very curious to read from the rest of you what your expectations are for your loved one’s.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Charley, this is beautiful. Such inspirational, gentle, and open-minded loving advice. Your children are very lucky to have you, I wish you and them all the best of luck. I hope they live the good, happy and fulfilling life you want for them.
Inspiring, Charley. Keep your optimistic attitude, it will get you through the challenges of the future, just as it gave you hope and the conviction that your children could beat the odds. They could and did.
I agree that you are giving your children a great gift in letting them know and understand clearly your expectations for them. Each one shows how much you love them!
My husband and I wrote out our five year goals (every five years, duh) and we always included our goals (hopes and dreams) for our four children. One of our life goals was attained in May 2009: our fourth and final child graduated from college! Now we have a grandchild and we love seeing our goals perpetuated in the next generation.
This whole post rubs the wrong way, gotta say. What happens if your children don’t want to travel the world? You’ll be deeply disappointed? Disown them?
Hey Alex,
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to post. The problem with writing is tone can be subject to interpretation. I will neither be disappointed or disown them. The manifesto is permissive not restrictive. If you’ve been thru as many near death experiences with your children as we have, you’ll learn to cherish each day, both good and bad. The manifesto is meant to inspire them to possibilities rather than accept the templated lifestyle as I mistakenly had for 36 years. It’s to give them permission to dabble instead of doing the standard template of, “go to school, get a good job.” This challenges a lot of people’s beliefs so I expect pushback. But with this explanation in hand perhaps it will shed new light if you read it again.
- Charley
Willow, that’s a terrific idea, including goals for your children as you set your own. Thank you for sharing that.
- Charley
Hi @Minimal Student, thanks so much for your kind thoughts, I appreciate them very much.
- Charley
Hey Anne,
Thank you very much for your thoughts. There are many days that seem challenging, juggling triplets, especially when one or more are not feeling well, but when we reflect on how circumstances could have been much different, it puts things into perspective.
- Charley
I used to cringe when I heard the word “expect” – I guess too many people around me were using it as a path to disappointment when the World acted differently. But I get it – what you mean in your post – and I think that giving this type of guidance and vision, by passing on your own set of expectations to others, is actually very helpful. As long as there ain’t no anger involved.
Thanks for taking the time to share it!
Thought provoking and well written… I have two children and all of the 21 I would like to encourage them to consider and act upon. However it is never too late to take another look at your own life and this post has made me do that. I’ll read through again and see what I can do to improve my own existence (particularly the number 12 – some work to be done there
). I like to lead by example – and where better to put that into practice than in parenting – it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it!
No anger Shannon, thanks for understanding the tone. I may come off like a jerk a bit when I write but I’m a cream puff around my kids.
Many thanks for the comment,
- Charley
Parenting is a very tough job 365Girl, you know it. When all three get fussy and start cranking it can test every last nerve, but then they can stop on a dime and be so adorable. It makes it all worthwhile.
Charley–When I was a young idealist, I used to think there should be a set of guidelines for International Travel (and an accompanying exam that had to be passed BEFORE travel could ensue). After working with kids for years at camp, and now with my own two little one–I appreciate the lessons one can learn from travel around the world, and travel within the world.
The world of parenting is full of triumphs, tragedies, joy and sadness–but by creating the Great Manifesto for your children–and for all of us who have the privilege to read it and share it–you have created a foundation for growth.
This would be a healthy exercise for anyone–and especially for me as a parent. Brilliant. Thank you.
WOW. This is truly one of the most articulate, beautiful things I’ve ever read. It’s like you lifted those words that are imprinted on my heart and from my daily prayers for my own children and brought them to the page. Thank you for this visible reminder of what is truly important (for us parents and well as our children).