Have You Disappointed Your Parents Too?

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[00:00:02.660] - Oliver (Host)

Are your parents disappointed in you? Many of us would say our parents have only ever wanted us to be happy. But what exactly does that mean? For many families, happy looks suspiciously like successful or impressive. And I sometimes wonder, is that really about their children's happiness, or is it more about the parents feeling reassured? Because if success doesn't guarantee happiness, and most of the time, I feel that it doesn't, why do parents still push their children towards it? And why, if we're honest, do we still often care so much about our parents' opinions?

[00:00:47.540] - Oliver (Host)

Welcome to English and Beyond: Intermediate English Podcast. My name is Oliver. I'm an English, Spanish, and Latin teacher from the UK. There is a free transcript and vocabulary flashcards available for this episode at morethanalanguage.com. Today, we're talking about parents, their expectations, our choices, and the strange gap between what they say they want for us and what they sometimes really mean. Because all parents are also living life for the first time. They cannot have all the answers. They try to give us the best map they can, usually a safe one, the respectable one. But the truth is, that map doesn't always lead to our happiness.

[00:01:39.140] - Oliver (Host)

So in this episode, I want to explore the paradox. If we know that success doesn't guarantee happiness, why do we still chase it? Why do our parents still encourage us or even worry deeply about us when we step off the path of success? And lastly, why do I keep coming back to this topic? Why do I worry so much what my parents think? Why can't I turn the page and say, I'll live my own life? When I was growing up, my parents didn't sit me down and announce their expectations. They never said, You must become a lawyer, or, You must earn a certain amount of money. But it was obvious all the same. You could tell what they valued from the way they spoke so positively about other people's children, the ones who were clever, polite, and good-looking. The way my mother marvelled over kids in the years above me at school who had gone to Oxford or Cambridge made it clear that these were the only options for my university if I wanted to make her really proud. The way she was so pleased when other mothers had praised the way her children looked or said our manners were impeccable made it clear that those were the qualities that impressed her.

[00:03:01.800] - Oliver (Host)

That, for her, was the full package. And so, without anyone saying it out loud, the message was very clear. If I wanted to make my parents happy, those were the boxes to tick: attractive, polite, and academically successful. So I tried my best to tick those boxes. I studied hard, I got the grades, and eventually, I did go to the University of Oxford, which was a source of huge pride for my parents who hadn't had those kinds of chances when they were young. Later, I kept following that same path. My parents had always been very vocal about how impressed they were by the salaries of their friends' children working in the city, in London's financial centre. So I became a finance lawyer. On paper, it looked ideal, respectable, safe, exactly the sort of career parents want for their children, especially when they themselves grew up without financial security, as was the case for my parents. But in reality, it felt very different. Living abroad in Germany and later Italy, working as a lawyer, I should have felt proud of what I'd achieved. My parents were proud after all. Instead, I was dragging myself through each day with no excitement, no vision for the future.

[00:04:28.440] - Oliver (Host)

It wasn't that my life was terrible, obviously. I knew, and I still know, I was extremely fortunate in many ways, but I hated my job. The trouble was, that didn't seem like a problem to anyone else. My parents would say, That's just how life is. Nobody likes their job. And that's where the confusion begins for me. Because if I sit down with my parents and I explain all this, that the grades, the Oxford degree, the career in law, didn't make me happy, they accept it. Rationally, they do understand. They even agree - they can see why I felt that way. But at the same time, they've still worried hugely when I've stepped away from that path. It's as if they feel that the traditional route works like an insurance policy. If you follow it and you end up unhappy, at least you can say, You did everything right. You're unlucky, you're not irresponsible. But if you take another more unusual, less well-trodden path, one away from good universities and jobs in law and big houses in a commuter town, and you're still unhappy, then you have to carry that completely yourself. It feels like you chose wrong, and your parents feel like they've done something wrong, too.

[00:05:51.780] - Oliver (Host)

Of course, this pressure doesn't look the same everywhere. Not all cultures have the same relationship between parents and children. From what I've seen, children in Northwestern Europe, in places like Britain or the Netherlands, often grow up with more independence. Family expectations don't weigh quite so heavily. But in some places in Europe, and in much of Asia, the family pressure can be far greater. When I lived in China, and from what my friends have told me, it was clear to me that many young people there feel an intense responsibility to succeed, not just for themselves, but for their family's reputation. And so if I already felt the weight of expectation in the UK, I can only imagine how much heavier it must be in societies where family is everything. I'm sure that these parents and these family oriented cultures want their children to be happy. I don't doubt for a second that my own parents truly want me to be happy. That's all they've ever wanted. That's all that most parents want. But there's a fear behind their expectations. The fear that if you're not rich and attractive and successful, you'll somehow end up penniless and alone and miserable.

[00:07:08.980] - Oliver (Host)

And if I'm honest, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see myself acting very similarly if I had children. But why? Because if we believe, as many of us do now, that success doesn't guarantee happiness, then why do we still act as if it does? Why do we push our children to get top grades, to secure the best jobs, to achieve more than we did, almost as if that will somehow guarantee their contentment when it hasn't guaranteed our own? Perhaps it's because the alternative feels too uncertain. It's easier to believe in the rule book, even if it doesn't work, than to admit we don't really know what makes a good life.

[00:07:53.900] - Oliver (Host)

So, perhaps that then is the real question. What is a good life? What is happiness? Personally, I've always been a bit pessimistic, a bit negative, a bit miserable. My dad used to say I was only happy when I was crying because I cried so much as a kid. And I think there's some truth to that, to be honest. I was never the naturally cheerful child who could bounce back from disappointments instantly. I was the one who worried, who expected the worst, who overthought, who assumed things wouldn't quite work out and felt the best way to guarantee success would be to anticipate all possible problems.

[00:08:35.780] - Oliver (Host)

And maybe that personality type isn't the most attractive quality, even for a podcast host, but it does shape how you see life. I often think back to one school assembly that made a huge impression on me. The headteacher stood in front of hundreds of people and said, Nothing you're worried about is ever as bad in reality as you expected, and nothing excited about is ever as good either. Everything, he told us, tends to revert to the mean, to your personal average of happiness. It wasn't a Hollywood message about chasing your dreams. It was a very British kind of pep talk. Not aim high, but keep calm, don't expect miracles, and get on with it anyway. At the time, it sounded almost deflating, but it also made complete sense to me, and it still does. The idea that after all the highs and the lows, we all drift back towards our natural baseline of happiness. So, what is my natural baseline of happiness? Because I think this must have an implication on what is a good life for me. Well, I suspect I'm naturally inclined towards dissatisfaction. And if my baseline happiness is lower than other people's, then maybe my parents are right.

[00:09:59.100] - Oliver (Host)

Maybe the best strategy is simply to make life as secure as possible, follow the respectable path, collect the right degrees and qualifications, earn a steady income, buy a bigger house. None of those things may make me happy, but at least they protect me from being even more unhappy. At least they would give my parents the reassurance they've always wanted. And perhaps that's really not nothing. In many cultures, it would be the norm, the expectation, to prioritise my parents' happiness over my own. Perhaps if I can't guarantee happiness for myself, then making my parents proud and relaxed is a very good compromise.

[00:10:43.500] - Oliver (Host)

But here's the problem, and it's the thing I can't escape. I already know what happens when I follow that route because I've lived it. I've ticked the boxes, I've taken the safe jobs, and I hated it. I hated dragging myself through each day in a role I despised, telling myself this was just how life was meant to feel. And if I keep doing that, if I knowingly step back into a career or a lifestyle that has already proven itself to make me unhappy, just to make my parents less disappointed, then who is to blame but me?

[00:11:19.960] - Oliver (Host)

That's the paradox I wrestle with. On the one hand, my parents' formula for life feels very rational. If you're going to be miserable anyway, you may as be miserable with money in the bank and an impressive CV that they can be proud of. But on the other hand, there's something even more irrational about ignoring the evidence of my own life, about choosing the path that already failed me just to make other people, even people I love, feel more comfortable. And so the equation reverses. If I'm destined to feel some dissatisfaction whatever I do, then perhaps the only honest choice is to do it my way, to take the risk, to own the consequences, even if it means going down in flames. Because at least then, if I end up unhappy, I'll know it wasn't because I blindly followed someone else's idea of what life should be. It will be because I tried, on my own terms. And maybe, strange as it sounds, there's a kind of dignity in that. So are our parents disappointed in us? Are my parents disappointed in me? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe, disappointment is just another word for fear. Fear that if we step too far away from a safe, conventional path, we'll suffer.

[00:12:41.600] - Oliver (Host)

And maybe they're right to worry. But at the same time, If the safe path makes us unhappy, then following it doesn't protect us either. In the end, we can't escape responsibility for our choices, for our mistakes, and for whatever happiness or dissatisfaction comes with them. And perhaps the real question isn't whether our parents are disappointed in us, but whether we're prepared to live with the lives that we choose. Please consider following, subscribing, leaving a positive review. If you do, I can show my mum, and maybe she'll be a little bit less disappointed in me. Thank you for listening. See you next time.