Stand Up For Your Story

Having the courage to create the life you want to live

My father always told me he was living vicariously through me. When I was younger I thought that was great, but then one day I realized that meant he wasn’t living his own dreams. There was more pressure on me to do things with my life than there was for him to accomplish things with his. What I once saw as a compliment became offensive. 

august 2024, recording the audio for Consider This

We all have our own lives to live. When parents aren’t able to achieve something in their own lives and then impose those ambitions onto their children, they are getting in the way of their children telling their own story. Society will also impose expectations. We see this a lot with the children of celebrities and public figures. Folks will wonder if the child will become an actress, a singer, or a doctor like their parents, when in reality they may want to be something else entirely. 

Right now my youngest baby says that when she grows up she wants to be a therapist and a book writer, and her husband’s going to be just like her dad. Her whole story is my story. Copy and paste. If that’s the way her life unfolds, great, but in the meantime, I encourage her to explore art, math, and other after-school activities. I don’t want her to be stuck thinking that my thing has to be her thing. 

We have to allow our children space and also make space for ourselves to create our own identity. When we grow up in a situation where our parents aren’t living the lives they’d hoped for and then they put it on us to fulfill those dreams, we have to take a step back, figure out how to put those expectations down, and explore what we actually want. 

You can ask yourself:

• What did my parents discourage me from doing?

• What am I doing because I feel like I should?

• What do I actually like to do?

• What am I good at?

• What brings me joy?

• What do I care about?

The first time I lived on my own, the little things I discovered about myself and my preferences were so interesting. When I was in the house with my mother she always put her ketchup in the cabinet. I kept my ketchup in the refrigerator. I want cold ketchup on hot fries. Even these small things that we discover about ourselves get us closer to really knowing ourselves and what we want. 

Our parents may not understand or agree with how we want to spend our lives and that’s ok. They may wonder why we’re a teacher and not a dentist like our sister. They may say our ambitions are silly because they don’t understand them, but that doesn’t mean those ambitions aren’t valid. 

People will hand us their dreams because they’re too afraid to chase them themselves, but we do not have to pursue other people’s dreams. 

Journal Prompt

• When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

• How do you address people who don’t support your dreams?

A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week

• How Your Future Self Can Help Your Present Well-Being, by Stacey Colino in The Washington Post. 

• Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind. You can watch this documentary on Max.