MY PARENTS grew up in a generation when families averaged 7 children, each one assigned a role to play. From the 7 would come a priest, a nun, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a soldier, or an artist. It all depended really on the family’s traditions. If you belonged to a family of doctors, you and your siblings could all be expected to train as doctors.

My parents had no such expectations for us. Perhaps because they unfortunately or fortunately, did not assume the roles they hoped for or even those which their families would have wanted them to play.

My mother was the 12th of 13 children and the youngest daughter. When her turn came to go to college, her parents no longer saw the wisdom of letting daughters get a degree, having already sent about half of them to college, the majority of whom had settled down to raise their own families (one became a nun). In the case of my father, he was not able to finish school because his family did not have the resources to send a fourth child to university.

But they were resourceful people. My mother, at 15, was already an accomplished pianist and earned a living giving piano lessons to children. My father later in life tried to earn a living from writing. This is how I explain my eldest sister’s pursuit of a musical career and how I, being a Papa’s girl and conscious of the high regard he had for writers in general, became a journalist. Our parents never verbalized their choices of careers for us, but their modeling was probably a subtle influence. Such influence turned out for the best, however, because both my sister and I have no regrets about the professions we chose.

I know people who do not seem to be as lucky. They are stuck in jobs which bore them or involved in activities which do not interest them at all. They would much rather be doing something else. Nene wanted to be a graphic designer, but her father, having a scientific bent, prevailed on her to become a chemical engineer. An unhappy chemical engineer she turned out to be.

Many parents still determine their children’s agenda. Arthur Janov, an American psychologist and the creator of Primal Scream Therapy, says: “It isn’t that parents deliberately ruin their children. It’s that they seek the fulfillment of their own needs through them, and that ruins them. (They) cannot let people be themselves because they must make them into what they need.” For instance, he says, a little girl will be dressed and fussed over (to the point of discomfort for her) by the mother who always wanted that for herself.

The child is easily seduced, since he would like to please and tends to believe that his parents have his best interests at heart. Much as we hate to admit it, the child’s feelings --- “I want to play, not practise” -- are his best interests. Children’s tension and agitation derive from being forced to do too many things. This makes them unable to stay with anything long enough to do it well. The best discipline is the child’s own desire.

Parents are not consciously or deliberately cruel. I am sure that if you asked someone if he loved his child, he would certainly say yes. Yet a lot of parents drive their own children bonkers. For instance, they can be totally convinced that they are acting in the child’s best interests when they expect high grades and admission to top schools. No amount of persuasion can shake them from their belief that this is done out of love.

One time, I had a conversation with my friend Sylvia who has distinguished herself in a career in academe. She and her husband were nursing their disappointment over the inability of a daughter to get into the university where she was currently teaching. The daughter also failed to make it to another prestigious university, and so she had no choice but to enroll in what her parents considered a third-rate university. I strongly sensed Sylvia’s disappointment in her daughter and could not help telling her, “Sylvia, your daughter probably has accepted what has happened and has come to terms with what she is capable of, but have you?” My remark sort of took her by surprise, and I knew then that she was more disappointed than her daughter.

This parental need to have our children become successful, even more successful than we are (and this is especially true if we feel that we have not achieved the kind of success we deserve) is quite common. I remember my own and my husband’s expectations of our son. We expected him to do well in school and develop his unique gifts. (After all, he had first class genes!) He humored us by staying enrolled for 5 semesters in Management Engineering to show his father he could handle the math courses, and for another 5 semesters in Communication Arts to prove to me that he could also be creative.

I can recall the time he got an A and then an F -- within one semester -- in his Creative Writing class. It was like he was telling us to let him be now that he had shown us what he was capable of -- succeeding and failing if he chose to.

Another story that comes to mind is from my favorite child psychologist, Dr. Honey Carandang. I refer to Honey’s tale as the “mixed message” story. It tells of a situation which she encounters often in her practice.

Honey says a mother once went to her for help regarding her 2 bright daughters, aged 7 and 9 years. The mother observed the daughters to be overcautious and unable to make friends. She complained that they were too nervous and unable to sleep if things did not turn out right. She told Honey: “I have repeatedly been telling them that it is okay if they are not in the honor roll. I tell them to just relax. I can’t understand it. I keep telling them that it’s okay if they don’t get high grades.”

In the course of the interview, Honey asked the mother: “What questions do you ask them during dinner time or when you are together?”

The mother answered: “‘Did you do your homework?’ ‘How was your exam?’ ‘Did you study everything?’” While enumerating the questions, the mother became aware of the message she was giving her children.

Honey says that sometimes our questions give more powerful messages to children because it tells them what is really important to parents and what they value. Questions also have more impact because they force the person questioned to stop and think of an answer, while declarative statements can just go in one ear and out the other.

In this case, changing the questions and making the mother aware of her own unconscious over-valuing of grades made a difference. For example, Honey says, the questions were changed to -- ‘Did you enjoy your game today?’ ‘How is your friend.’ ‘Did you help so-and-so today?’

There is a great deal of anxiety about children who cannot produce in school; they are called underachievers -- meaning that, according to someone else, they aren’t achieving what they should. Achieving what they feel like achieving is considered a failure.

The job of parents, to me, is to help their children to be the best of what they want to be and to teach them to enjoy life. If children are happy and well integrated, they will want to become productive members of society. If they are not, then they will produce, not out of conviction, but out of a desire to please. And that, we know, is a very fragile motivation for anyone.