Tyson Wesley Hamm

If you’ve followed my writing over the months you may already know about our miscarriage back in March of ’08.  If not, you can read about it on zenhabits.  But we DID finally get pregnant again and Liz is due on May 22nd.  But today we were blessed to finally find out the babies gender.  It’s a BOY!!!

Now let me start by saying that we kind of had a preference, a girl, but only just slightly.  In the end we just want a healthy, happy child.  I think it’s just that my side of the family is riddled with boys so we knew it was inevitable.  But now were really excited about the whole idea.  Yay us!

But I didn’t want to just mention this exciting news, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about something I have NO experience with, but hope to share my insight none the less.  This whole thing got me thinking…

What are the dangers that lie ahead?

More specifically, I wanted to talk about the danger of expectations.  Because the instant I heard it was a boy, I thought to myself, “Awesome, he’s going to be just like ______ and we can _______ together and he’ll be good at _______.”  You get my point.  I instantly started painting a picture of what I thought he was going to be like.  Actually, a picture that I HOPED he was going to be like.  But this can be a dangerous path to take.  Expectation, if not met with perfection, only leads to disappointment.

I’ve seen it happen with many other families.  One or both of the parents have all kinds of expectations before the child is even old enough to show promise or direction.  Then suddenly it turns out the child had a personality that completely clashes with that of the parent/parents.  Let’s say the father is into sports and the son wants nothing to do with it.  Or the mother is a complete extrovert who likes to socialize and the daughter is a total introvert and just wants to spend time by herself.

This is completely natural, but I would think that the proper mindset could help the parents avoid the danger of a failed relationship.  It seems to me that we should be careful to stay open to our child’s personality and perspective on life and never try and fit them into a mold.  The goal is not to love having a mini version of yourself, but to love this completely unique individual that you have been blessed with.  To look for what you HAVE been given, not what you should be or were meant to be given.

OK, so I’m a total rookie here and you can totally take this all with a grain of salt.  I’m sure that the second this thing pops out I’ll be running around with dirty diapers and yelling, “WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!!!”  But until then, I want to at least SOUND like I have a clue.

That is all for today…