Boozilla

Context is everything. The expectations should depend on the person’s potential and the goal.

Having an absolutist binary mindset is not going to serve you or your kids well. Pushing your kids towards excellence and not coddling them with participation trophies is entirely valid. But, acting coldly disappointed and treating them like failures for not being perfect means you will probably never see them in your old age.

Just do the math. If a very small percentage of people achieve the goal you have in mind: assuming your kid “should” achieve that is possibly just your own narcissism bleeding out on them. Not everyone is going to play pro sports or be valedictorian. Thinking otherwise is pure delusional arrogance.

Reminds me of all those “tech magazine” articles years ago saying “akshually Edge is a really good browser” after the entire Windows user base only used it to download some other browser instead.