Expectations of Myself and of My Child

I am an overachiever. I was the sort of child who would cry when I did poorly on a test. In fact, my parents never felt they could punish me when I did poorly in school (usually in math classes) because I'd come home sobbing uncontrollably, convinced they no longer loved me. It goes without saying that, as an academic, I have high expectations of myself. I've been advised, by people whose opinions I value and trust, that I will need to lower my expectations of myself in the coming months; I've also been advised by a very good friend and my very smart advisor that I may be able to accomplish more than I think. I realize I have to set smaller goals for myself in the months following the birth of our little one.

All of this has me thinking about my expectations of my child. Will I be a go-with-the-flow kind of mom who lets my child go at his or her own pace? I know myself well enough to know that I am not a go-with-the-flow kind of person. I like to be informed, and like most academics, I go out of my way to keep myself informed. But I'm still not altogether sure what that will mean for me. In the past 8 months, I've read 4 books on pregnancy, 5 books on unmedicated childbirth, and 2 books on breastfeeding. I have read nothing on childrearing, except what is mentioned in these other books. I know from my niece and nephews as well as friends' children about when babies should teeth, roll over, sit up, walk, etc. I've spent enough time with children to know what sorts of discipline techniques I will and will not use.

But I don't know what I expect out of my child. I've been so focused on getting the baby here safely and on getting through my proposal, C's dissertation, multiple family dramas, nursery planning, and countless other things that I haven't really stopped to consider what I expect from the baby. I mean, I don't really expect anything at first, other than lots of sleeping, eating, and pooping. But after that? Will I be one of those mothers who enrolls her child in "Mommy and Me" immediately? Will I try to teach the baby French before s/he can speak English? Will my high expectations of myself extend to my child, and could that make me a bad mother? As I type that I think immediately no. After all, if my child comes home from school crying over the Pythagorean theorem (I never could get that in high school despite countless hours of help from my 9th grade math teacher), I will know what to do--I will calmly inform my child that I have never once had to use it, that not understanding it has not made me a bad person, and that despite my distress over it at 14 I have gone on to lead a productive life. My parents just hugged me and told me it wasn't the end of the world, when, to me, it most certainly was. But what happens if my kid is a math whiz but hates to read or hates art? What if my kid despises literature, thinks art is meaningless, has no interest in learning about the world, and grows up to be a Republican? I certainly don't expect that, but then again, my parents didn't expect me to pursue a Ph.D., join N.O.W., and vote Democrat, and C's parents definitely didn't expect him to become an Art Historian, marry a feminist, and become a raging liberal. I am suddenly realizing that I do have some fairly high expectations for our child: I expect him/her to think somewhat like C and I do.