Raising Healthy PKs, Part III: Other People’s Expectations

Don’t allow other people to impose their expectations on your children.

Let’s face it. There are two extreme stereotypes of preachers’ kids: They are sweet and angelic, or more often than not, they are bad as the devil. We’ve probably seen both extremes, but we have also seen a lot in the middle. Neither my husband nor I put undo expectations on our children because of his profession. We expect them to be respectful and obedient to us and other people in authority. We expect them to be well behaved in church worship because they are both old enough to do so now. While we don’t expect them to mini-theologians on the Bible, it is our hope that we are cultivating a thirst for the Word and the things of God. We’ve never had the conversation, “Well, you know because your father is pastor, you need to ….” So, it never dawned on me to consider other people’s expectations of them until my oldest daughter’s first grade teacher, a PK herself, pointed out, “You may not place unrealistic expectations, but you cannot control how other people respond to your children.”

Never was that so clear until an incident my oldest daughter had a few years ago with a person in authority. The person accused my daughter, who was six at the time, of lying. If she was lying, I would fully support corrective measures appropriate for a six year-old. What I would not support at any age is shaming my child, which is what this person did as she told her, “Do you want to be known as the pastor’s daughter who lies? Do you want to embarrass your father?” Hold up! Wait a minute! Stop the breaks! What?!? Would you ask the accountant’s son why was he so slow to get math? Or, why the teacher’s daughter is a C student? So, why would one expect a greater sense of morality from the pastor’s child? Without going into detail, we did resolve the issue, but more importantly we reassured our daughter that she did not have to worry about making her father ashamed of her, especially at six years-old.

Fortunately for us, this has been the only incident of this nature, and the two churches where my husband has served have given my children the space to be kids. However, this incident taught me to be aware of what messages my girls could be getting from others. Some of those messages have been comical. When my oldest daughter’s class figured out her father was a pastor after she had been to the school for three years, she came home to ask, “Why does Jeffrey keep saying I must be rich because Daddy is a pastor?” My response was, I don’t know, but I sure would like to know why he thinks that myself.

Raising healthy, whole children today requires lots of on-the-job training, lots of listening and being aware. But, more importantly, it requires lots of prayer. This is true regardless if the child is a PK or not. As a recap of this blog post series: 1. We have to walk and talk at home and elsewhere what we preach and teach at church. 2. Our own expectations can’t be unrealistic of our children. 3. Finally, we cannot allow others to impose their expectations on our children either.

My prayer on a regular basis is, “Lord, show me how to mother both of my girls in their own uniqueness. Show me how to be what each needs, not what I think they need.”

Shauntae Brown White is an associate professor at North Carolina Central University in the Department of English and Mass Communication. She is married to the Rev. Dr. Harry L. White, Jr., pastor of Watts Chapel Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC. Shauntae and Harry have two beautiful daughters.