Expectations
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| Expectations October 2011 As a family I was brought up to eat all my food on my plate and ask for a second helping. My boyfriend of the time and later husband was brought up in a family where the food was shared out and they left what they couldn’t eat. I found this extremely difficult because the portions were enormous and I just couldn’t waste the food. Consequently I avoided having meals at his house for a long time as after eating one meal I was violently sick. I would now recognise this as similar to bulimia. My mother in law became a friend right up to her death in 1997. I was able to talk with her about most subjects. Most people saw her as a lovely person who cared deeply about people but she also had a difficult side that I could cope with but her two other in laws found hard. My husband was her favourite child [something I don’t believe in] and I by my background was regarded by the other in laws as a good catch. But was it really that or was it that my greatest expectations in life were to compromise and say sorry if I screwed things up? Having used my model AERO [Aspirations, Encouragement, Realism and Openness] with several hundred children at a secondary school in Staffordshire I have found that when given freedom to choose many children will pick the word ‘expectation’ AERO is a combination of trigger words and an Introvert/ extrovert chart. It’s not rocket science it just helps many start to make sense of their world and why things are as they are. Expectations can be very great or very small and how we cope with them varies with our own personalities as well as the people who have influenced us during our upbringing and beyond. Returning to the subject of food this can be a very powerful tool used by a child who is really saying ‘hey look at me’ I recently read my medical records for when I was a school phobic at the age of 14 years old and one record used the word ‘anorexic’. I thought I was never ‘anorexic’ I ate loads of food and loved it. I was just slim and it was after eating at my future in laws that I became fatter not being able to ask for less or wasting the food. So how powerful is ‘expectations’ and what do we expect of each other? Getting to know and live with another person can be hard even if you have very similar personalities and expectations. If your expectations and personalities are different or those of your extended families and friendship groups it can be practically impossible at times. A friend of mine recently said that he preferred being on his own but that I should never tell his wife. Why would I? That’s their business not mine. But there often is an expectation that outsiders will interfere. When going through difficulties in life it is often hard to know who to turn to talk about things. There are many Fassit members who have had difficulties with social workers and other professionals and who have tumbled into the scary, critical world of the family courts. I have great sympathy with this because I have been an area social worker who has had parents talk with me about their experiences of professionals and how disappointed they have been with the lack of support they have been given early on when they really needed the help. I have also been appalled by the nature of the courts and the rigid narrow thinking. I have come across so called ‘ experts’ who I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with but also know how hard it is to oppose a senior member of staff. I have talked with parents and grand parents who find themselves in the middle of a battleground and have seen how the courts can also create this too. But when thinking about why parents are there and what happened along the way it regularly comes down to expectations and a lack of willingness to compromise. From time to time I get emails or phone calls from complete strangers who ask if I can help. I can only look at a situation from a distance as I am not there living that life. I can’t possibly know what went truly wrong. What I can do is get people to stop and think deeply and honestly. Admitting that you may have screwed up in some way is to me one of the bravest things that anyone can do. I’m not into blame it just gets no one anywhere. I am currently writing an update to my original model AERO called AERO a Recipe for a happy life which should be available from me in a couple of months. I’m always happy to respond to emails because I’m happy now but have had my own times of distress and sorrow. by Rachel Bramble |
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