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Chapter 5 78 Michael Sandel calls an ‘openness to the unbidden’; an openness to the un-expected. 48 Sandel suggests that parents who have expectations also need the ability to remain open towards their child and their child’s life, because if parents lose this openness to the unbidden, this would ‘disfigure the relation between parent and child, and deprive the parent of humility and enlarged human sympathies’. 49 It is self-evident that the more strongly held expectations parents have, the more this is likely to interfere with an openness to the unforeseen. If for example a child is expected to take over the family business, and that is seen as the only way that leads to a successful and therefore flourishing life, then one can imagine that the parents are not open to other, unforeseen, options. 50 However, having expectations in itself does not necessarily exclude an openness for the unforeseen; parents may well expect things from their children (in the descriptive and the normative sense), and be open at the same time, i.e. they may be flexible with regard to their expectations and their fulfilment. Expectations and flourishing as a goal As discussed, we believe it is reasonable to assume that the more strongly parents hold expectations, either low or high, of their children, the less flexible the parents become. This is problematic if the child has different ideas about what constitutes a (her) flourishing life, or when, as a result of the parent’s inflexibility, it is not possible for the child to explore different – perhaps unforeseen – ways of living a flourishing life. This problem is inherent in (strongly held) expectations. But what we particularly want to show here is that a combination of (active) striving for flourishing as if it were a goal and having expectations with regard to that flourishing life creates an undesirable way of pursuing a flourishing life for one’s children. When parents have high descriptive expectations, they believe that their children’s flourishing is probable, because they have reason(s) to believe so. Or, when they have high normative expectations, they believe strongly that it should be the case that their children lead flourishing lives. But in either case, they cannot know for sure , which calls for a certain humility and therefore also flexibility. If, in addition, flourishing is seen as a goal, of which it is clear how it can be reached; in other words, the attainment of which can be ensured if only one ‘gets the recipe right’, parents come to believe they have a way of ensuring their expectations come true. This is problematic, as we have seen that it is impossible to predict in advance ‘how to flourish’. Such aiming for flourishing can only lead to overestimating children 48 Sandel 2009, p. 80, after May 2005. 49 Sandel 2009, p. 80. 50 In Dutch research on the prevalence of child abuse very high parental expectations that are inappropriate for the child are regarded as a form of ‘emotional neglect’ (Alink, Van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, Pannebakker, Vogels and Euser 2010, p. 41).