Dreading Hope

I am changing gears here, as another life change has thrust itself into the pole position at the moment. I want to publicly mull over the circumstances that are part of fatherhood. At least I think they are a common part of the fatherhood experience, and I cross my fingers that I am not being presumptuous. Currently, I have a 25 year old who has embarked on the next phase of his life. He has boldly dropped everything to trek 1200 miles from PA to Miami, FL, hoping that he and his girlfriend are ready to undertake a scary and exciting experiment with true independence. My daughter is graduating from college, and holding her breath that she can figure out how best to proceed with the next phase of her life. My youngest is finishing up his junior year of college, and trying to determine if he will have prospects to pursue a year or so from now. Me? I think my job is to believe in all of them. Mother has the same job, only slightly different. She needs to believe in them too, but she is supposed to make her primary message that she will be there for them no matter what. I feel, rightly or wrongly, that my job is to let them know that I have high expectations. Maybe I am wrong about that, but I feel that my father, who was a flawed individual on a good day, always conveyed the message that my success was expected, a given, and that anything less than success would be a disappointment. Consequently, I don't want to mimic his approach, as I don't know that his position always worked to my betterment. Therefore, I want my children to know that, while I do expect much from them, I don't have a measuring stick in mind. Iw want them to know that the standard I expect them to meet - and exceed - is predicated on what they want to achieve. Following that reasoning, their relative level of success is connected to their living up to their own expectations. I want the bar to be set where they say. My measurement of their achievement is controlled entirely by what they want to squeeze out of life. I am not sure if I have been clear, though I know exactly what I am in the process of meaning. In short, my expectations are high, but I have no concrete benchmarks that I expect them to reach. Instead, I expect them to set their own high goals, and to convey their own expectations in regard to achieving them. If the eldest aspires to the Nobel Peace Prize, and the youngest aspires to a steady job at the local supermarket, and they each attain their goal, I will be proud of them. In short, I want them to set worthy goals and struggle and sacrifice to reach them. Perhpas the middle child has it in her to cure a deadly disease; if so, then I want her still working in that direction until she reaches that goal. Ultimately, I am not the judge. I want them to be their own judges, and if or when they decide to have children, I want them to impose these same attitudes on their children. My wife and I have managed to raise great kids. I think we have been very lucky, but I also think we have done some things right. I am certain that the luck part is most observable in the fact that our mistakes - and there have been many - have not been major impediments to our children's development. Because they are great kids, they have masked or overcome our shortcomings as parents. I will not delineate what I know have been the mistakes. At this point, our kids have not been hobbled by them. They have a chance to become what they wish to become, and their having reached this point makes me very proud. I am not sure if I am right to be so proud, but the older I get, the less I care about that.